Holocaust Memorial Day — a day to remember those who soon after never played or saw another football match. 
“It is overtaken by the center forward who gives it, blitz-shnel, over to the right wing. He carries it all the way to the corner, centers it, and, with the power of a bomb, it is driven into the opponent’s net. A wild, triumphant shout rips out of hundreds of breasts. The match is really lost, but our honor is rescued.
The sun has finally gone down behind the meadows when the dense masses reach Nowe Miasto. A cool evening breeze caresses and cools the agitated crowd. The church bells have rung. Through the windows that blaze in shining purple from the setting sun is heard the sweetly sung nign of “God of Abraham”, a woman’s prayer marking the end of the Sabbath.
By the time the crowd reaches the marketplace, the first stars are already twinkling. Some go home, a number go to daven, the weekly mayrev; others go to the bar at Szotenberg’s, where, with a glass of beer or tea, they soberly analyze the lost match.”
Excerpt by Abe Rosenberg.
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When the Germans decreed that Jewish kids could no longer attend school, my father, uncles, and their classmates took to the fields to play football. It was a refuge from the impending darkness that was descending on them. Later, when Hans and Ernst Oettinger settled in America, the boys returned to their beloved sport joining the Maccabees, a Jewish football club in the Inwood section of New York. The hatred they were born into followed them to their new soccer pitch. However this time, the anti-Semitic insults would not be swallowed. Special tactics were developed by the Maccabees when playing certain Eastern European teams. Think The Longest Yard meets Inglorious Bastards. By all accounts the matches were blood baths.
Many life lessons were learned through football. Lessons that will never be forgotten.