In the ghetto of Terezin existed for more than 3 years different football leagues for adults and the youth. The games were watched by a big audience and the players won their admiration.

Players who survived telling following about the atmosphere by the games: Even SS-officers who watch the games loved them and cheered for the players. Photographs were used for Nazi propaganda.

His 20th birthday Franta Maier celebrated in May 1942 in the ghetto of Terezin. There was no big birthday party celebration in the block 2 some months after he was brought with his 45 orphans from Brno to Terezin. They were accommodated in one out of three children houses, in each of them were 350 Czech speaking children in the age of 11-17. The children lived and did everything together as a group and they worked in a vegetables garden. The goal was to isolate them as much as possible from the horror of the ghetto and to prepare them for a pioneer's life in "Eretz Israel" with the spirit of the Zionistic youth movement.

The group of orphans was accommodated in room number 7. Maier, who was their leader, didn't just care about their order and discipline, but also gave them fatherly love. He gave them an education full of values. He practiced with them theatre plays and founded their own football team in the ghetto with the name "Nesher" (Hebrew for eagle). The colors of the team were red and withe.

They edited three football magazines, just one of them obtained with the name "rim-rim-rim", what they cheered by the football games, "go eagles go, rim-rim-rim". The editor was also a player (he was gassed at 1944 in Auschwitz) and the writers were in the age between 13 and 14. They just printed 6 copies of the newspaper and wrote a wide report about the football games of the league of the youth and the adults in Terezin. They also published articles about famous Jewish players who lived in the ghetto. In the 18th edition is Maier criticizing his protégés in an article written by him, that beside the daily routine stuff like taking a shower, eating, making order, playing and studding they aren't doing enough for the newspaper. "And isn't that a sign of incapacity of the boys in the age of 14? Become adults, grow out of your diapers, forget about your toys and occupy yourself with something more ", he wrote, so they would start writing, "so they can correct their way", he said.

Franta, today Francis, Maier is living in Los Angeles and he will become 87 years old. On the phone he sounds fresh and smart. He was born to wealthy parents in Brno, as the middle one of three children. He studied in Jewish schools and in the age of 19, he became a goalkeeper in a football team. He was also a passionate Zionist and he thought in the Jewish orphanage of the city.

As he arrived with his children in Terezin, Otto Zucker the head of the Jewish community in Brno, one of the most influential people in the ghetto, delegated him the responsibility for the collective education of his children.

On one of the maintained photos Maier is running on the ground, they used as the football ground, which was without grass. On his left side is goalkeeper Jirka Tausig-Tessar and behind him is coming the player Pawel Breda. The picture, says Maier was taken at the beginning of the game "Moravia against Bohemia", which opened the league. The game was played on the ground across form the Magdeburger barrack, in this one were sitting the leaders of the "self management" of the ghetto. Today the barrack is a part of the museum of the ghetto. "I was the goalkeeper and the shoot a goal, but the game ended 1:6 for us", he says. "In the audience was sitting a young woman that I liked, but just after some time and after our victory the romance started between us and she didn't want to give me away anymore."

Maier didn't just played for the football team "eagles" but also believed in them, beside that football wasn't the center of his life. "We played twice a week football and this was great. We had a huge audience, because the games gave them the option to distract themselves from all the daily troubles.

We were admired like rock stars today. Since we were qualified and powerful it was natural that we were able to excite and amuse. But in the ghetto I was busy with other stuff most of the day. I had to take care of sick children in the hospital. They had horrible disease, we had never-ending meetings and generally, if you work with children you have no free minute."

Maier says that the players got the clothes for the games from the management of the ghetto. "In Terezin you could get anything", he tells, "This was the tragedy". Everybody remembers the cultural work at the different operas, but they were a good camouflage and covering for the continuous sending of people to the east. As I asked once what is happening to them in the east, they told me not to interfere in stuff what doesn't concern me.

I have lost 15 members of my family in the Shoa, among them my parents and my little brother. The people believe that Terezin was a showcase ghetto, but this place was horrible and we daily fought to survive. I did everything to keep the children away from reality."

More than 15.000 children worked in the ghetto Terezin and just 1.100 of them survived. The protégés of Maier were sent together with him in September 1944 on a transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. But because of his physical ability he was sent from there on another transport, but he escaped near the river Eger (upper Austria), he jumped from the railway wagon and he got away to Budapest.

In May 1945, after the war ended, he returned to Czechoslovakia. His older brother, who had left Europe during the war and had served in the English army, also returned.

In the year 1952, when Maier and his wife moved from Israel to New York, he had a hard time, since his brother was murdered in Czechoslovakia for political reasons. In this time detained propaganda trials in Prague: 14 men in charge, 11 of them Jews, of the communist party and of the government were found guilty to bring down the government and most of them were executed.

In New York founded Maier a firm that produced and sold paper, today his son is the manager.

"The wardrobe group"

Today is Oded Breda the manager of "Bet Terezin" in Kibbutz Givat Haim. 4 years ago he went on a journey searching the roots of his family in the Czech Republic and started to research what happened to his uncle Pawel Breda, who is on the picture with Maier. He became aware of the fact, that this was the last time that his uncle played with the football team on the "football ground".

His father Mosche Breda, worked for the army and than moved to Tel Aviv, he was born in 1923 in Brno. 13 months later his brother Pawel was born. They were like twins and did everything together. Their love for sports started early, they played: football, ice hockey, and ski and athletic. 1939 his family tried to immigrate to Palestine, but the mother was heart sick and the father was afraid of the heat in the country. The parents receive a permission from the British to go to Palestine and so they send the 16 year old Mosche, but Pawel the younger one stayed with his parents. During the war Mosche fought for the British army in the Jewish brigade in Italy, when the war ended he went to Czechoslovakia to look for his family. In Brno he received the horrible information, that his parents and his brother were sent to Terezin and from there his parents were sent to Auschwitz, were they were immediately killed and his brother was sent to a labor camp were he died as a result of hunger.

The second time Oded Breda went to Terezin he came to the idea to play again the last game were his uncle participated in on the "football ground" of the ghetto. But the idea was never realized. As he was searching for the story of Pawel Breda he dived into the historic past of Terezin. Last year he stopped working in a High-tech firm he used to work and since than he is the manager of "Bet Terezin". "I change the "world of money" with a "world of values", he says.

The second time Oded Breda went to Terezin he came to the idea to play again the last game were his uncle participated in on the "football ground" of the ghetto. But the idea was never realized. As he was searching for the story of Pawel he dived Breda into the historic past of Terezin. Last year he stopped working in a High-tech firm he used to work and since than he is the manager of "Bet Terezin". "I change the "world of money" with a "world of values", he says.

Thanks to Breda, who gave the archive material, is opening today in the Nelly Aman gallery in Tel Aviv an exhibition about the football league, which existed for more than 3 years in Terezin. There we saw a short movie and interviews with former players.

Frantisek Planicka, a famous Czech football player, was the hero of the childhood of Jirka (today Georg) Tausig-Tessar. Tessar grow up in Prague and was for years a goal keeper and played in the Czechoslovak ice hockey team. On 17.November 1938, some days after the "Kristallnacht" in Germany, Tessar player as the goal keeper for the Czechoslovak football team against Hungary. The game took place in Budapest. Tessar was celebrated by the newspapers as the best player in the whole game. Today Tessar is 90 years old and lives in San Francisco. On the phone he tells that his family was arrested in June 1943 and was send by train to Terezin. His father was brought in the prison "little fortress" and later on he was sent to Buchenwald, there he was shot to death.

Tessar and his mother were accommodated in the ghetto and since he was a famous football player, the team wanted him to continue playing with them. At the end he worked in the group "wardrobe", were the belongings of Jews came on wagons and Czech police officers were searching hidden objects.

Tessar remembers everything also names, dates and places are evoking stories. "We were the "stars" in Terezin and every Sunday afternoon an audience of 3500 people were cheering the games of the league. The young people ennobled him as an ideal to copy. They put their hope in him, because he was a symbol that represented for them life. In their suffering, depressiveness, misery was hope seldom. We played for them; because we knew that they would be send sooner or later to the east. We felt that we were a small ray of hope before their death."

Tessar was sent from Terezin to Auschwitz and from there to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen, in northern Germany and later on to Bavaria. On 26 of April in 1945 he was liberated by the Americans and he returned to Czechoslovakia. There he started playing again for the football team, but after he got hurt he returned playing ice hockey and he was the team captain of his country in Olympia 1948 in London. On his way back home via Paris, he saw the figure skater Eliska Hawoluba and fell in love with her. In Prague they met each other again; they became a couple and decided to desert to the west.

"As I was forced to go to the death march I promised myself that if I would survive than I would never live with my family in Europe", he said this week. He says that he considered going with his wife to Israel, but it was to close to Europe. "Hitler was still present for me and I knew that history repeats itself." And there was another reason: "My brother immigrated illegally in the end of the 1930 to Israel, he was disappointed about what he saw and he joined the British army."

In 1949 they arrived in America. He replaced his sport career with a business career with successes.

"My wife isn't Jewish and our children didn't race up with the Jewish religious education, but I was born as Jew and I will die as Jew."

"The childcare group"

The Nazis founded the ghetto Terezin in the homonymous city in the northwest of the country. There they concentrated, at least for a certain time, Czechoslovakian Jews and older Jews from Austria and Germany, most of them were working in science, education system, humanities or artists. In a place were there lived once 7000 inhabitants, they cooped up innumerable Jews. The ghetto was the only concentration camp, that the Nazis showed until the end, because it was a "model ghetto", which was independently managed. Despite the constriction, hunger and oppression methods and the sendings to the east, the cultural life and the sport life, especially the football was blooming in the ghetto.

In his book "Searching for myself", Peter Erben who was a football player in Terezin writes about what they did in their free time. Today Erben is 88 years old and lives in Aschdod. He was a sportsman from young age on and practiced in his youth skiing, ice hockey, athletic and football. In the age of 21 in September 1942 he was sent together with his mother to Terezin and recognized the gymnast Freddie Hirsch. If the Nazis wouldn't have come to power he would have had a good chance to be in the German team for Olympia 1936.

"Hirsch saved my life as he gave me work in the department "youth education", while the rest of my friends were sent on a transport to the east." During his task as sport teacher in the ghetto Hirsch gave his pupils values of self-discipline, body training, control of body and mind. His protégés were not just trained by games and exercises. His strict controls of the children rooms were called as "one of the ten plagues" Ruth Bondy is writing in her book "stripped roots".

In Terezin Erben focused himself on athletic and he kept and trained his fitness by running daily in the ghetto. "I was young and my work didn't exert me physically and I didn't suffer from it", he tells. "My feeling told me that the food in the ghetto was good and the frequency was okay. But for older people and adults who didn't work was it not enough. Sometimes I got additional food at work, here a piece of bread or there a slice of cheese. Who looked good and didn't have a Jewish nose, received additional food. "

In the first year we organized in Terezin 12 different football groups, each group represented a certain working place. Between 1943 and October 1944 the league was so powerful, that the league was limited on 6 clubs: "transportation", "childcare", "wardrobe", "cooks and butchers", "electricians", and "youth education". Because of the size of the football ground, they just played in teams with 7 players and the fans were cheering vocal. "They took their spectator seats also in the windows of the barracks and the air vibrated as by games of the national league", Erben writes in his book." I played for "childcare" and the leader of our group was Franta Maier. Pawel Breda and I were in defense, also Schmuel Kalober played in our group. There were 3 great players; one of them was Honza Burka the unforgettable, who was able to shoot a goal from every place of the football ground and also out of every situation. Of course we had an amazing audience and everybody knew us. Also the rest of the team were excellent international football players, like Jirka Tausig-Tessar, goalkeeper of the Czech national team."

"Football gave us a great feeling", Erben says. "It was a pleasure for thousand of prison inmates. It was obvious that they liked me. The young women were very nice and we just lived like all young people in the world." The atmosphere at the games was sportive and nobody behaved aggressive or violent against anybody else." The referees were professional and the games serious", he says. "We played fair and we really felt like sportsmen. We had healthy jealousy, but also if we won and the others lost, we kept friendships."

He was three years in Terezin. "We hoped that when Israel will be founded it would be like Terezin, a land that will be characterized by Zionistic organization with values of justice and volunteer work. Everyone who worked in the leadership of the self-management of the ghetto did an important duty. The Jews built a town under pressure. Hirsch got up every morning at 6 a.m. and took care of the children and the youth; he took care that they would get up and washes themselves. Terezin was a sociologic experience for an ordered life. We prepared the youth to fulfill the Zionistic dream in Israel.

Half a citron for the last game

Jan (Honza) Burka is today 85 years old and lives in southern France. The first thing he said this week on the phone is that he is still painting. Two years ago was his book "Painting to survive" released in Prague, an album dedicated to all painters and artists of Terezin. But in the ghetto he didn't became famous as painter, but as football player. Burka, son of a Jewish mother and a Christian father was born in the town of Postolptry and studied painting in a private school in Prague. As he became 18 years old he was sent together with his brother to Terezin. There he worked in the garden and in the common kitchen. His brother was a carpenter and together they succeeded to construct a room under the roof where Burka could paint. As son of a Christian father he was able to survive until the liberty and to save his paintings.

In his album writes Pereg about the league in Terezin, that he played for "childcare" and he remembers the day of the game in the ghetto, were the people waited from early morning on very excited: "The size of the Dresdner barrack was 45 by 75 meters. Since there wasn't enough place, the people needed to close ranks in the entrances and windows of the barracks. In the main cell on the first floor were always seat reserved for SS-officers, who cheered full of happiness and enthusiasm for the players, just so as they were Jews themselves."

The game last one hour and was split in to two halves. "For most of the prisoners it was a special day and they could forget for some time their misery. My team won the championship of the league in 1942 and in 1943 the "butchers" were ahead. Before the last game our trainer gave each of us half a citron. Until today it is a mystery how he got this treasure."

After the war ended Burka got offers from different football clubs in Europe, who wanted that he will play for them, but he rejected. In Amsterdam he married Ellen, a Danish woman he met in Terezin. Their daughter Petra Burka, was born in November 1946 and five years later they moved to Canada. Petra became famous in Canada as a figure skater. From Olympia 1964 she returned with a bronze medal and one year later she won the championship.

The happiness was authentic

A delegation of the Red Cross visited Terezin at the 23.June 1944. After the visit the Nazis decided to show the world public that the horrible conditions in the camps just were propaganda of the Allies. That’s why they decided to make a documentary movie that would show the "good life" in the ghettos and what is better for that than a football game were thousands of prisoners are cheering full of joy.

Adolf Eichmann gave his permission for the choice of Terezin. The production of the movie cost 35.000 Reichsmark. The movie was financed by disappropriated Jewish funds. The movie was filmed by the stuff of the Czech News "Aktualia". The work to the movie "Terezin – a documentary film of the Jewish resettlement" was finished just in March 1945 in Prague. Additional in the film is a concert of the orchestra, a show of the Jazz musicians and the children opera. The first time the movie was shown in Prague to a group of Nazi officers, afterwards representatives of the Red Cross saw the film. Even Israel Kaestner, a delegate of the committee of saving Hungarian Jews, came to Terezin accompanied by two officers who subordinate to Eichmann. The copy of the original movie disappeared after the end of the war and just parts were preserved.

The Dutch historian Karel Margy who researched this chapter, says that the horrible uncovering of the death camp Majdanek (Lublin), that was liberated by the red army in July 1944, was the reason that the Nazis made such a sportive propaganda film. Margy wrote, that Himmler was involved in the production of the movie and that the detainees of Terezin gave the movie the ironic name: "The Fuehrer gives the Jews a city".

The direction of the movie was made by Kurt Gerron a German star before the Nazis took over; he was a cabaret actor and a movie director. 1928 Gerron played the character of Mackie Messer in "The Three Penny Opera" from Berthold Brecht was premiered. During his time as actor he played in 72 different movies and the most famous role he played as a conjurer in "The Blue Angel" next to Marlene Dietrich in 1930.

The documentary film "Prisoner of Paradise" was nominated for 3 Oscars in 2003, the film tells about the character and the tragedy of Gerrons life.

Gerron was Jewish origin and financed an airplane ticket to the USA for the young Jewish actor Peter Lorre, after the Nazis came to power in 1933. He wasn't afraid for himself and he was sure to survive. As his friends in Hollywood, the director Fritz Lang and Peter Lorre, the actor understood what will be happening with Kurt Gerron, they tried to rescue him and organized work for him in the studios. But Gerron refused the offer since the airplane ticket wasn't first class. Gerron escaped from Germany and stayed in different places in Europe, but in the end he was arrested in Holland. In February 1944 he was deported to Terezin. In "Prisoner of Paradise" survivors are talking about his behavior during the shooting of the film. He was wearing a scarf and had a folded tissue in his shirt pocket and he even had a director chair with his name on. Despite that he was wearing the "yellow badge" on his chest and SS-officers surrounded him all the time, he was flourishing during the film shooting. However the movie "Prisoner in Paradise" makes also clear that he was humiliated and insulted all the time.

Peter Erben told this week how the house fronts of the main street and the houses they could see from the main street were painted with color. Erben had to play a role of an inhabitant who was sitting in the café of the ghetto and was drinking a coffee; the place was an imitation of the café "Savarin" in Prague. He was also to be seen in club who was especially founded for the film; also he participated in a dance competition, athletic competition and of course in a game of the football league.

"Everybody knew Gerron the director and actor from "Ufa", the main film studios then in Germany." Everything in this so called documentary was a show and we played the roles", says Erben. Gerron was filming the football league on Sundays, when 3500 viewers were cheering at the game. There he wasn't needed as director. The happiness was authentic. Tessar sounds apologizing as he speaks about Gerrons film: "If you were in a concentration camp than you felt how near the death was and you didn't refuse to shoot such a film". Maier has a different opinion about it: "Gerron, poor prisoner is suddenly a director and walks from one place to another, gives directions and was amused. Gerron was more a German than a Jew. He believed that he will win and that they would spare him. I didn't know that he was filming us, but Iam very clear to be seen in the movie. He was also filming my orphans and while the shooting he was very kind to them. In other scenes I saw how authoritarian he could be. In Terezin he wasn't appreciated and the ones who worked with him didn't like him. I think he wasn't aware of the fact that he sold his soul to the devil. He still believed that his social standing was still counting."

Gerron gave the Nazis the paradise ghetto they wanted. The film was edited already by somebody else. In December 1944 was Gerron already burned in Auschwitz. On the 28.10.1944 he got on the train, which was deporting prisoners to the east. "Like a king and he even wasn't looking left or right", tells Ada in "Prisoner of Paradise".

Terezin in numbers

Terezin is founded in 1780 as a fortress city. In the beginning of the Second World War lived in Terezin 7000 inhabitants. On the 24.November 1941 the ghetto Terzin was founded and in summer 1942 it was evacuated from none Jewish inhabitants. In September 1942 were 58.491 prisoners cooped up in the ghetto.

158.00 Jews were over the years in the ghetto, Jews from Germany, Austria, Holland, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. 90.000 were deported in the extermination camps from these people just 4800 survived. 35.500 Jews died caused by hunger or diseases. On the day of liberty (8.5.1945) there were 30.000 Jews in the ghetto. Of 12.121 Jewish children (age group 1928-1945) which came to Terezin, 9001 were deported to the death camps and of them just 325 survived.

An article from the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz , written by Dalia Karpel on the 17.04.2009, translated by Judith Stern