Football and the Holocaust
THE BEAUTIFUL GAME
In the old days of my youth,
When I used to lie back in the dentist’s chair
Ater a medicinal whiff of gas,
With the drill resonating in my head,
And all manner of contrivances stuck in my mouth,
My mind sometimes used to drift away,
As I tried to escape the pain,
And I used to see all manner of things,
Although I never saw Eddie Hamel
Standing there beside me.
A tall good-looking gentleman
Was Eddie, with sleek black hair
And a number 7 on his back;
A New York Jewish gentleman,
Who just happened to play football,
Patrolling the Ajax right wing,
And sending in his accurate crosses,
In those happy flapper days of the Twenties,
Before the Second World War.
But because Eddie was Jewish,
He went on a sealed train to Birkenau;
Where he shared a bunk with Leon Greenman,
And that’s where they rubbed their backs together,
Sharing warmth on those cold winter nights,
Trying to stay alive for the Final Solution’s selection.
Eddie had been an Ajax first team regular,
A right regular agile winger,
Who could drop his shoulders, feint to the left
And then swerve with his body to the right,
That’s why he was selected,
He was intelligent, elusive, accurate and strong.
But on this nightmare selection day,
Eddie had an abscess in his mouth,
And the SS thought a swollen face
Meant an unfit, incapable worker,
So while Leon went to the right,
Eddie, right behind him,
Was ordered to the left,
And this gentle man,
Described by Leon as “terrifically nice”,
Was despatched to the gas chambers
And the Final Solution.
But we’ll remember you, Eddie,
Especially when any Feyenoord fans abuse the past,
Chanting their holocaust songs
And “We’re going on a Jew hunt”,
Then mimicking the hissing sound of escaping gas
When their team plays Ajax.
Don’t you just love The Beautiful Game?
ONE IN TEN
It’s so easy to forget us,
When remembering the Holocaust,
The wearers of the pink triangle;
But analysed from any angle,
We are the one in ten,
The women and the men,
Who find true love and trust
Within the confines of their own sex.
But we were gassed en masse,
So as to leave no trace
For the master race,
And its fascist bellicosity,
And heterosexuality.
But I held his hand,
And he held mine,
And strange as it might seem,
We recollected our football team,
As we rumbled on to Auschwitz,
Whistling tunes from Lizst,
Until the chamber’s hiss
Took him from me,
But not from my memory.
For he lives on again and then again,
For are we not still, a resilient one in ten?
PORRAJIMOS – THE GREAT DEVOURING
“Porrajimos”
Is what the Gypsies call the Holocaust,
And it came as no surprise
To experienced Gypsy eyes,
“ The Great Devouring”,
For Nazi racial ideology
With its delusory biology,
Had already said the only way
In the bright new day
Where “Tomorrow belongs to me”
In a thousand year Reich,
Where Might is Right
For ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer,
Was to stop Gypsies, as they put it,
Breeding:
For re-creation and miscegenation
Was misleading,
To a society based upon racial purity
And doctrinal probity.
So this meant concentration camps
And sterilisation, with the lamp
Of fascist academia acting as a beacon,
For eugenics was the guiding reason,
And the way to get on,
Until petrol replaced the needle,
And the spade, the scalpel,
And gypsies were burned alive,
Like our strong man number five,
A centre half who made no errors,
But now burning in screaming terror;
But Zykon gas is so much cheaper,
Than petrol ditches dug ever deeper,
And so horror itself was soon surpassed,
With 250 Gypsy children gassed –
Buchenwald guinea pigs in 1940,
Another beacon for the Holocaust story.
And while the winter rains
And the chambers’ drains
Choked on the smell of gas,
The death trains danced
To the tune of the Final Solution’s
Timetables.
THE DISABLED
“We’ll use the wheelchairs to make new tanks”
They laughed, “And the callipers
Will make nice new machine guns,
And your skulls will make fine footballs,
And we’ll melt you morons down
For tallow for candles,
That’s the only way you’ll spread any light
From your Untermenschen lives.”
My eye lids closed as tightly
As the gas chamber doors,
And a solitary tear dropped down my cheek,
Catching the last rays of the sun,
As it dropped behind the high barbed wire.
There’s no place in the master race
For those who can’t run fast
Or who move in a different direction.,
About This Site
Welcome to Football Poets -- a club for all football poets, lovers of football and lovers of (alternative) poetry. Discover poets in every league from respected internationals at the top of their game to young hopefuls in the school playground.
Publish your football poems here and then discuss them with your team mates and fans. We're archived by The British Library, so your masterpieces are in the safe hands of a world-class keeper. What a result!
My Account
Latest Poems
joe morris
2nd May 2024
joe morris
28th April 2024
Richard Williams
26th April 2024
joe morris
25th April 2024
Denys E. W. Jones
25th April 2024
kevin halls
23rd April 2024
Alex Saynor
23rd April 2024
joe morris
23rd April 2024
Crispin Thomas
22nd April 2024
Denys E. W. Jones
21st April 2024
Crispin’s Corner
In Memoriam
Kick It Out & Christmas Truce
Latest Comments
29th April 2024 at 2:47 pm
Hi Denys,
Yes Richard Williams you’re a brilliant wordsmith, my friend. When I first saw your football poetry I thought it was the superb Guardian sports and music writer. I once had the honour of sitting next to Richard Williams while at the Independent on the sports desk. He writes about music and sport with immense knowledge and authority. I’ve read a couple of Richard’s books recently. Great writer rather like you Richard Williams the Pompey fan. Congratulations on promotion.
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28th April 2024 at 5:59 pm
Thanks Denys. Yes your replay poem was superb.
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26th April 2024 at 4:46 pm
Nice work, Joe. You were quick off the mark with that! Good one from Richard Williams too I see.
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25th April 2024 at 7:33 pm
Hi Denys,
Thanks mate. I’ll do it now.
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25th April 2024 at 1:56 pm
Thanks Joe,
you might like to write a poem yourself on the same subject…
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23rd April 2024 at 4:03 pm
Hi Denys
With you all the way on the abolition of FA Cup replays. What are they doing to the game?
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23rd April 2024 at 3:59 pm
Hi Crispin,
Yes sorry mate. Villa are still in Europe. Mistake rectified.
Cheers
Joe
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20th April 2024 at 12:04 pm
Hi Joe
Shouldn’t your title read your poem Farewell Europe England to everyone exccept Aston Villa ?
I know you mention them in your poem , but I do feel sorry for Villa re the national press .
Largely ignored. the hype was was all about Man City & Arsenal with a bit of a nod to the Hammers..but hardly a mention of Villa..
So well done to them
C
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19th March 2024 at 8:00 am
Hi Crispin. Chris Sutton on the radio has gone for a Chelsea v Coventry final. As we know anything can happen in the Cup, and I reckon we can go to the final.
We’re still in with a chance of the play offs too, so lots to go for.
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19th March 2024 at 7:41 am
Hey Kev
Let the masses drool over their odds on City v Unted Final, but who knows how pressure can hit.
Cov and Chels will be rightly labelled as having no chance..but hey …stranger things have happened..
so Chelsea v Coventry…that’s the Final for us!
Best
C
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