Anti-semitism, Germany, Football

Don't know why it's taken so long for someone to post this story...

Anyway the story first came to my attention via Doughnut Boy, who posted it on the Anti-Defamation Forum. A good English version courtesy of Ynetnews.com, German versions via Tagesspiegel, Berliner Zeitung, et al.

Berlin club protests about anti-Semitic abuse

Players of lower-league team Tus Makkabi walk off pitch after facing 'gas the Jews' and 'Auschwitz is back' chants

A Berlin lower-league club has complained to German soccer authorities about anti-Semitic chants that they faced at a recent match.

Players from Jewish club TuS Makkabi in the Berlin district league, five divisions below the Bundesliga, walked off the pitch in protest in the 78th minute of the match at VSG Altglienicke in east Berlin.

The statement from Makkabi can be found (in German) here.

Consider some of the chants the players were confronted with:

- "Synagogues must burn"

- "Führer , Führer , Führer, Führer"

- "Ausschwitz is back"

- "This isn't a Jew state, this isn't the German Jew Republic"

- "Gas the Jews"

- "JEWS, JEWS, JEWS"

- "The Federal Republic don't rule here, the NPD [neo-Nazi party] rule"

And for something totally nuts, while standing by the touchline, near the referee, and being abused by fans, a Makkabi player turned to the ref and said "Did you hear that?" The ref looked at him and said "No". Later, Makkabi player Vernen Liebermann, just before the game was abandoned, said to referee Brüning "If you have an ounce of decency for history in this country, then you must help us now". As a response, Brüning sent him off.

When you consider that TuS Makkabi is the only recognisable Jewish club, certainly in Berlin, and that the authorities did nothing or deliberately chose to turn a blind eye, this is scary, especially as it was a German 5th division away match in a pretty nasty part of Berlin. Those players really could have got badly hurt, no-one helped them at all, and they were forced to walk off themselves to make an issue of it.


Just for your information: more about Jews in German football on the FARE website. The FARE action week is taking place in Berlin soon. This, hopefully, with the help of TeBe fans and others, (we are in the process of organising a friendly match of TeBe fans against a Makkabi side) will be at the top of the agenda.