Italian soccer fans taunt rivals with anti-Semitic chants about Anne Frank

Lazio previously fined over $60,000 after supporters plastered stickers at stadium showing Holocaust victim wearing a rival team shirt with tagline ‘Roma fans are Jews’

By JTA 18 April 2018, 3:57 am

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An image of holocaust victim Anne Frank with reading "We are all Anne Frank," prior the Italian Serie A football match Bologna vs Lazio on October 25, 2017 at the Renato-Dall'Ara stadium in Bologna. (AFP PHOTO / Gianni SCHICCHI)

Fans of the Italian soccer team Lazio taunted a Rome rival with anti-Semitic chants about Anne Frank.

“Anne Frank is from Roma,” the Lazio fans chanted Sunday at the Roma squad, which often is associated with being left wing and Jewish.

The incident in the fierce intracity rivalry came days after Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. Their match ended scoreless.

The Lazio team was fined over $60,000 in January after fans plastered stickers at its home stadium showing Anne Frank wearing a Roma uniform and the tagline “Roma fans are Jews.”

Under Italian soccer rules, clubs are responsible for the behavior of their supporters in the stadium.

Following that incident, Lazio President Claudio Lotito announced in response to the incident that his club would take 200 fans every year to visit Auschwitz. Also, he said players would visit schools to speak to students about respecting rules and stamping out racism and social barriers.

Lotito also visited Rome’s main synagogue and laid a wreath there in memory of Holocaust victims and condemned the actions of the fans.