Today – on Saturday January 27 – Watford Football Club remembers the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside millions of other people killed under Nazi persecution, as well as victims from more recent genocides that have taken place across the world.
It was on this date in 1945 that the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, took place.
In April last year, representatives from across the game of football attended the March of the Living event in Poland, as part of a delegation arranged by Kick it Out.
The club’s EDI Lead, Dave Messenger, and Ze’ev Portner from the Jewish Hornets supporters group joined staff from the FA, EFL, PFA, Kick it Out and Chelsea FC, as well as around 10,000 people from across the world, to march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, the largest WWII concentration camp complex.
The Kick it Out delegation spent three days learning about the Holocaust and visited other sites across Poland in the lead-up to the march.
The group also heard from a number of Holocaust survivors such as Eve Kugler, who has visited Vicarage Road to share her remarkable story with club and Trust staff, including academy players, on more than one occasion.
“Taking part in March of the Living is something I will never forget,” said Dave.
“To be given the chance of learning more about the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust in some of the places it happened was a remarkable, at times harrowing and at others uplifting experience, and it was such a privilege to speak and listen to Eve and the other survivors. I’m incredibly grateful to Kick it Out for the opportunity to take part.”
“There are moments in life which are seared in one's consciousness, which one never forgets and which never leave you,” said Ze’ev, who also works as a steward at Vicarage Road. “The visit was very challenging and very emotional indeed.
"My great great aunt Alice Portner was murdered by the Nazis in 1944 at Auschwitz-Birkenau. I was also at the same time inspired by the Holocaust survivors I met.”
Click HERE to read more about Dave and Ze’ev’s experiences in Poland.
