German Soccer Fans (Mis)use Anne Frank Image To Mock Rival Team
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Stickers showing a doctored photo of Anne Frank wearing a German soccer team’s jersey appeared in Dusseldorf, Germany, a week after a similar incident in Rome.
The stickers show the teenage Holocaust diarist in a Schalke team jersey.
It is believed that the stickers were created by the Borussia Dortmund soccer team, which reportedly has a number of neo-Nazis as part of their hardcore fan base.
Photos of the stickers were first posted on the German blog Ruhr Barone.de.
German police are investigating the incident, according to reports. Anti-Semitism is a crime in German, as is Holocaust denial.
Last week a passage from “The Diary of Anne Frank” was read out prior to all soccer games – youth games, amateur and professional – throughout Italy after fans of the Lazio club posted the stickers around Rome’s Olympic Stadium showing Anne Frank wearing the shirt of the Roma team. The teams share the stadium. Roma is often associated with being left wing and Jewish.
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