Wolves Academy once again marked the Holocaust Memorial Day over the weekend, educating youth players and paying respect through the Premier League’s ‘Football Remembers the Holocaust’ campaign.
For the sixth consecutive season, Wolves’ under-14s group have been learning about the Holocaust during their education sessions over the past five months, culminating in the young players showing respect ahead of their match with Reading on Saturday.
Their work was building towards Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday 27th January, with Saturday’s game against the Royals being the nearest fixture, before which both sets of players held a minute’s silence in memory of the 6 million Jews and others who lost their lives.
Players of both teams stood side by side remember the life of Holocaust survivor Bela Guttmann, who had been the focus of the education sessions for the Wolves under-14s. While this year will see players from all Premier League clubs pledge to remember the atrocities, and in keeping with this year’s theme, ‘Strive For a Better Future’.
Natalie Deakin, academy education and welfare officer, discussed the impact of the project on Wolves’ under-14 players, saying: “It can be tough going, because it's serious content, so with a group of under-14 boys, sometimes it can be a little bit difficult, but they engaged really well.
“There's a lot of work that goes into it because we want to do it properly, we don't just want to pay lip service to it. They get a really good understanding of what went on and how these things started for an unsuspecting group of people. They were normal people that got dragged into something they couldn't control.
“It's a really worthwhile piece of work, and I think the boys get a lot out of it. It's quite difficult to start off with, but the more they learn and understand, the easier it gets.”
During their education sessions, the academy players spent 45 minutes each week dedicated to the Holocaust, learning about the Jewish people affected, particularly Guttmann, who played as a midfielder until he was deported and tortured by the Nazis, but thankfully survived.
He went on to manage many clubs including AC Milan, Porto and Panathinaikos, however, his greatest success was at Benfica, where he won two European Cups (now known as the Champions League).
Deakin said: “It always helps that they have a person to focus on and the Premier League will find somebody who's been involved at a high level of football to look at. Bela went to the Paris Olympics to represent Hungary, so he was a prominent football player who survived the Holocaust.
“We will look at different football teams that were affected and there were all Jewish football teams that were all completely wiped out. We’re trying to get across that sense of normality – they were just regular people and didn't do anything different, and yet these things happened to them for reasons they had no control over.
“There were footballers amongst them, so it's really important to keep learning from history and learning from your past and remember these things.”
The next part of the project will see a Holocaust survivor delivering their testimony to the group, prior to this, their story will be delivered to the group by project lead, Linda Barnett and the Academy education team.
The project continues beyond Holocaust Memorial Day, with two players who’ve embraced the project, visiting Auschwitz in May with education staff, to continue their education on a hugely important topic.
“Their work will lead a trip where two players who have engaged particularly well will go to Poland to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, and we've been doing that for the last six years. They do their education, so the kids are really informed on what they're doing and why they're doing it. We'll spend a lot of time doing some education pieces around it, all leading to Holocaust Memorial Day,” said Natalie.
