Ajax, the Dutch, the War

In 'Football against the enemy', Simon Kuper crossed the globe in search of the links between football, politics and culture; in 'Ajax, the Dutch, the war', he narrows his focus to western Europe-chiefly Holland- and events between 1933 and 1945: A book about football and World War II would go to the heart of Holland. Football was a place where the Holocaust met daily life. What happened in Dutch football clubs during the war would be a microcosm of what happened in the country. It might even produce wider truths about the war in the rest of occupied western Europe. Prior to the war, Amsterdam was seen as a city of 'Jews and cyclists'. Crammed into the Jewish quarter was a population of around eighty thousand, many of them rag merchants, banana sellers and diamond cutters. A couple of miles to the east lay Ajax's De Meer stadium - of a Sunday, a bustling hub of activity at the furthest edge of the Quarter. By 1940 the Germans had sealed off the Quarter with barbed wire; by 1945 almost eighty per cent of the ghetto's population had been wiped out. And by the end of the century the long-held notion that, by and large, half the Dutch population had some kind of link to the Resistance was coming under question. This, in a country falling under the shadow of Pim Fortuyn's party... In looking into the lives of individual players, club officials and ordinary fans during this tumultuous period Simon Kuper ha skilfully pieced together an alternative account of World War II, one seen through the lens of football. He also widens the scope to take in England, France and Germany, and in depicting a continent obsessed with football during war-time - on the thousand spectators were in place for the kick-off of the German league final in Berlin - he challenges accepted notions of the war in occupied Europe -------------------------------------------------------------- L’Ajax era la squadra del ghetto di Amsterdam. Ogni domenica, le bancarelle del mercato ebraico chiudevano in tempo per andare a vedere la partita. Poi è arrivato Hitler. Kuper, giornalista e scrittore olandese, racconta la tragedia della Shoah e della Seconda guerra mondiale da un’angolazione inedita: quella delle pagine sportive dei vecchi giornali, delle storie dei tifosi e atleti sopravvissuti, degli archivi delle squadre olandesi. L’utilizzo del calcio da parte di Hitler e Mussolini viene calato da Kuper nella cronaca della partita, nella memoria del singolo atto di discriminazione. Il libro contiene un prezioso apparato fotografico: la nazionale inglese che fa il saluto nazista, la faccia di un’ala destra ebrea dell’Ajax, di cui Kuper sessant’anni dopo ricostruisce gli ultimi giorni ad Auschwitz. Grazie alla sua indagine, la storia del calcio olandese, europeo e italiano diventa lo schermo su cui scorrono decine di storie di collaborazionismo e deportazione.