Chelsea soccer club unveils mural with Jewish soccer players killed at Auschwitz
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Chelsea soccer club unveils mural with Jewish soccer players killed at Auschwitz

Club, owned by Russian-Israeli Roman Abramovich, honors murdered German and Hungarian players and a British POW who survived death camp

By Cnaan Liphshiz 17 January 2020, 6:24 pm 0 Edit
Chelsea soccer players Cesar Azpilicueta, right, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek stand against the club's mural commemorating Holocaust victims in London, Jan. 15, 2020.(Courtesy of Chelsea FC via JTA)
Chelsea soccer players Cesar Azpilicueta, right, and Ruben Loftus-Cheek stand against the club's mural commemorating Holocaust victims in London, Jan. 15, 2020.(Courtesy of Chelsea FC via JTA)

JTA — The Chelsea soccer club in England marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a commemorative mural of Jewish players and prisoners of war who were sent to a Nazi camp.

The mural was unveiled Wednesday on a wall outside of the West Stand at Stamford Bridge and is part of Chelsea’s Say No to Antisemitism campaign being funded by the club’s Russian-Israeli owner, Roman Abramovich.

“By sharing the images of these three individual football players on our stadium, we hope to inspire future generations to always fight against anti-Semitism, discrimination and racism, wherever they find it,” Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck was quoted as saying about the event in a statement on the club’s website.

The mural features three portraits.

Julius Hirsch, a German Jewish international footballer, was murdered sometime after 1943 at the Auschwitz Nazi camp in occupied Poland. Also depicted is Árpád Weisz, a Hungarian Jewish football player who was murdered there in 1944.

The third portrait is of Ron Jones, known as the “Goalkeeper of Auschwitz,” who was a British prisoner of war at Auschwitz. He survived the camp.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is Jan. 27, a date designated in 2005 by the United Nations. On that day, Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz. This year is the liberation’s 75th anniversary.

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