>From the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
www.faz.com
Anti-Semitism on Frankfurt's Soccer Fields
By Marc Heinrich
FRANKFURT. A growing number of anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish soccer players has plunged the Hessian Soccer Federation (HFV) into turmoil. So far the verbal and physical attacks have affected mainly youth players of Frankfurt's TuS Makkabi soccer club.
This weekend, the club announced that five of its players have been attacked or denigrated during or after away games.
"It has taken on a new dimension," said Dieter Graumann, who, for the past six years has been president of the club, which has 500 members. "It has become regular practice on the field to call us 'dirty Jews,'" he said.
Graumann, who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Community of Frankfurt and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, accuses the HFV and the German Soccer Federation (DFB) of reacting too late and so far with negligible effect to an increasing number of incidents.
"I have been writing polite letters to those responsible for three months, hoping to set up a meeting to discuss these occurrences." Until now, his requests have fallen on deaf ears.
It is only since TuS Makkabi dared to go public that these incidents have been treated with any degree of seriousness.
"Suddenly within an hour we have the meeting time we have been requesting for three months," Graumann said.
The 50-year-old said he first turned to Rolf Hocke, president of the HFV, late last summer, following an attack during a game on August 28 -- the most serious up until that point.
During a game against a team in the Frankfurt district of Rödelheim, an 18-year-old Makkabi player was first called a "bloody Jew." Then he was given a head butt, which resulted in a serious injury -- the victim required surgery for a broken nose. The referee then suspended the game.
The 17-year-old attacker, a German of Turkish extraction, was suspended for eight months by a sports court, but in the opinion of Helmut Weintraut, a legal representative for organized soccer in Frankfurt, shows "not a trace of regret" for his action.
According to Graumann, "the situation has escalated in recent months." He said that while "individual insults and occasional incidents" occurred "on a periodic basis" in previous decades, "It now happens regularly and the racist incidents are getting steadily more violent." Graumann said he does not expect special rights for his club, but insists that "the wonderful speeches at association meetings are translated into real live action."
Offenders should not gain the impression that coaches, club executive members or association officials tolerate their behavior. "They should not be allowed to hijack sports for their racist ideology," said Graumann.
Graumann added that what the club has told the media so far represents "only the tip of the iceberg." Since the middle of October, he said, players from the Youth A and B teams have been subjected to insults that include "You must be on Schindler's list," "Jewish asshole" and "We want to see you burn."
On other fields, he said, guns have been pointed at Makkabi players and stones have been thrown.
Graumann highlighted an incident a week ago after a game in the Frankfurt district of Griesheim, when teenaged Makkabi players were surrounded in their dressing room by a mob from the opposing team, who chanted "come out, you bloody Jews." When the visitors left the club, the attackers, brandishing broken bottles, allegedly chased a Makkabi player of Greek origin more than 200 yards down the street. "He was very lucky to be picked up by a passing car," said Graumann.
"We are becoming fair game," said Igal Lemler, the head of the branch of the club which oversees its men's team, which has just been promoted to the regional first division.
Visiting a game on Sunday afternoon, Frankfurt's Mayor Achim Vandreike and the person in charge of sports in Frankfurt, Sylvia Schenk said that the city had registered the incidents "with horror."
"I would not have believed it possible that something like this could happen in our city," said Vandreike. He described the wait-and-see policy, which the HFV had until now taken, as "disastrous. Some people there are clearly out of their depth."
On the initiative of Schenk, the association intends to call all those involved, together with representatives from the Frankfurt police and the Hessian Ministry of the Interior, to roundtable talks on Dec. 13.
"We may have underestimated the situation a little," conceded HFV spokesman Stefan Reuss earlier on the weekend.
For his part, Graumann hopes that the meeting produces more than just empty platitudes. And he said that no matter what the outcome, TuS Makkabi will not allow itself to be intimidated.
"If those committing these acts think we will eventually give up, they are in for a long wait."