(JTA) – The Chelsea soccer club in Britain 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, Jan. 15, 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. “We hope to inspire future generations to always fight against antisemitism, 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, murdered sometime after 1943 at Auschwitz; Árpád Weisz, a Hungarian Jewish football player, murdered there in 1944; and 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. On that day, Red Army troops liberated Auschwitz. This year is the liberation’s 75th anniversary.