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Soccer-Fans Lay Wreaths at Dachau to Commemorate Nazi Victims
Soccer Football – Euro 2024 – Germany stages ‘Football and Remembrance’ program – Dachau concentration camp, Dachau, Germany – June 15, 2024 A bagpipe player with Scotland fans during the ceremony. Photo: REUTERS/Angelika Warmuth
Fans from Scotland, Ukraine, Germany, Israel and other nations laid wreaths at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site on Saturday to commemorate victims of the Nazis, vowing “never again” and to use football as a force to unite people.
The group toured the camp and heard how the Nazis had persecuted Jewish footballers and coaches, forced prisoners to play soccer for propaganda before banning it, then allowed only some inmates to play under the camp’s hierarchy of privileges for different categories of prisoner.
Fans also heard the children of former camp victims tell their parents’ stories, walked in procession with a Scottish bagpiper.
Dachau is half an hour’s drive from Munich’s football stadium, where Euro 2024 began on Friday. It was one of the first concentration camps to be set up by the Nazis, weeks after Adolf Hitler took power in January, 1933.
“It is a somber place. You walk in and it is an uncomfortable feeling. But I think this sort of service is important to remember what happened, to make sure we learn from mistakes… it has opened our minds to a lot of things,” said Cole Cattanach, 21, a Scottish student from Falkirk, travelling through Germany to support the Scotland team.
Andreas Erbel, representing German football fans, said he came to the commemoration to help protect democracy.
“I wanted to show that there is also a counterweight to the move to the right across Europe, that there are more people… who are open to the world.”
“During Euro 2024 many people will come to us in Germany and it is a chance for us to live out this togetherness.”
In the 12 years before its liberation by American soldiers in 1945, over 200,000 people were imprisoned at Dachau, among them the Jewish president of Bayern Munich soccer club Kurt Landauer. At least 41,500 died at in the camp and its satellite sites.
Saturday’s event comes amid Germany’s nationwide “Football and Remembrance” program for Euro 2024, looking at how the Nazis murdered athletes and used soccer for their own ends, with tours at historical sites close to the host cities.
FOOTBALL AT DACHAU
The Nazi SS guards had photos taken in 1933 showing prisoners playing football at Dachau, most likely to try and deceive the outside world that inmates were well treated.
Football was then banned at the camp until 1943, when the Nazis needed to use the fittest prisoners for munitions manufacturing, and so allowed the sport as a perk. However, Jewish prisoners, at the very bottom in the Nazi’s racist hierarchy of prisoners, were excluded.
The football pitch on sandy ground was by the camp’s roll call square.
“What we know from survivor accounts is that you could always notice the smell of burning bodies in the air, you saw the perimeter fence, and the emaciated prisoners. These were football games under extreme conditions,” said Maximilian Luetgens, a historian at Dachau who is leading the historical tours.
On display is a wooden football trophy, carved in 1944 by a prisoner for a tournament between teams of inmates. It was won by a group of political prisoners from Luxembourg.
Visitors can also see a poster designed by prisoners, showing two players, framed by barbed wire and with the triangle badges worn by inmates from Poland, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg.
“This work is so important, because there is unfortunately an increase in racism in European football, and there are racist, antisemitic and homophobic chants,” said Luetgens.
Bernd Neuendorf, President of Germany’s Football Association wrote in an introduction to the Football and Remembrance program, “People from all continents will come to us to peacefully celebrate and support their teams… Nevertheless, we also want to use this tournament to remember the dark sides of German history and reflect for a moment.”
The post Soccer-Fans Lay Wreaths at Dachau to Commemorate Nazi Victims first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.