World Jewish News

Football club fans in Poland display banner calling for burning of Jews

Football fans in Poland set fire to ‘’Jewish’’ effigies and displayed a banner calling for burning the Jews, Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

Some 50 supporters of the Widzew Łodz football club were photographed on a bridge at the Lodz Kaliska station with a banner reading “19.08, today the Jews got a name. Let them burn,” followed by an obscenity, the paper reported.

The message referenced to the rival ŁKS Łodz team, which was founded in 1908 and many Poles associate with Jews because of the rich Jewish history of Lodz.

The city in central Poland had a large Jewish population before the Holocaust, partly because it was a capital of the local textile industry.

Police were looking for the demonstrators, who are suspected of incitement to racial hatred and intimidation, Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

EJP