Jewish Sport Clubs Commemorate Soccer Teams Shuttered By Nazis
Image by wikipedia
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — Two Jewish sport clubs in Argentina honored their counterparts in Vienna and Warsaw, that were shuttered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
The Buenos Aires-based Hacoaj and Macabi sports clubs, as part of Holocaust Remembrance Day activities, wore authentic uniforms of the Hakoah Vienna and Makabi Warszaw teams during a match on Sunday.
Both institutions made their tributes to the European Zionist sports clubs that suffered during the Holocaust during Sunday’s events, recreating the atmosphere of the WWII era, and imagining an encounter between the two clubs. “The match that didn’t happen: A tribute to the Jewish sport before the Shoah” was the title of the soccer event.
In 1909 followers of Zionist Max Nordau founded Austria´s first Jewish sport club, Hakoah Vienna. On a tour in 1921, Hakoah became the first continental club to defeat an English team on their home pitch, when they thrashed current Premier League team West Ham, 5-1. The team also won the Austria championship in 1925 and then visited the U.S. in 1926.
The iconic European Jewish club was formally shut down by the Nazis in 1938. With more than 5,000 members, the club was especially successful in swimming and soccer. It was reopened in 2008.
Makabi Warszaw was founded in 1915 and had 3,000 members that practiced sports such as basketball, soccer, wrestling, fencing, tennis and rowing.
The Jewish Argentinean sport organization, Macabi, produced a replica of the same uniform worn during soccer matches during the Holocaust.
The replica T-shirts are included in the current exhibition at one of the Argentina main soccer clubs.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
