Football will also be joining in with the commemorations to mark Holocaust Memorial Day over the weekend of 26 and 27 January 2019. As in previous years, FC Bayern Munich will be taking part in a campaign to remember the crimes of National Socialism and send out a signal against all current forms of racism and discrimination in German football. The idea is to raise awareness among fans and passers-by at historic locations in the city centre on Saturday as well as around the Allianz Arena in the build-up to Sunday’s home match against VfB Stuttgart.
On Saturday 26 January between 1pm and 4pm, memorial islands will be set up in the heart of the city at sites where members of the FC Bayern family lived and worked until the Nazis seized power in 1933. In the years that followed, Jewish members were excluded, expelled, driven to death or murdered by the dictatorship. The sites are located on Maximilianstraße (the Kammerspiele theatre), Theatinerstraße 35, Stiglmaierplatz (the Löwenbräukeller) and Bayerstraße 27. Among them are the workplace of honorary Bayern president Kurt Landauer as well as the former Hotel Stadt Wien.
Together with FC Bayern fans, and partners from the Munich city archives and the ‘!Nie wieder’ (‘Never again’) initiative, the campaign should spark a dialogue with passers-by and interested people, shedding light on the life of the club in Nazi Germany. Match-goers will be able to see the memorial islands on Sunday 27 January on the esplanade in front of the Allianz Arena from 1pm to 3pm. To mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp, victims from the FC Bayern membership will be remembered on both days.
FC Bayern continues support of ‘!Nie wieder’
FC Bayern Munich has been supporting the ‘!Nie wieder’ initiative since 2013. Following the special exhibition ‘Players, fighters, legends’, the touring exhibition ‘Venerated – persecuted – forgotten: Victims of National Socialism at FC Bayern Munich, the memorial event for Walther Bensemann and last year’s reading of letters between Kurt Landauer and his later wife Maria, this year’s campaign is the next important piece in the culture of remembrance.
