A strong element of anti-Semitism was added to the passions of football fans when the soccer club of Utrecht (FCC) played its annual match against Amsterdam’s Ajax club here last Sunday. About 260 riot police met the followers of the Utrecht team at the railroad station and escorted them to the stadium where many knives bludgeons and axes were confiscated along with banners containing anti-Semitic slogans.
The heavy police presence was called for because of the anti-Semitic violence that broke out among the Utrecht fans at last year’s match. It was directed against the Ajax club which presently has no Jewish players but did have some in the past. Its former chairman is Jewish.
Mayor Willem Polak or Amsterdam, who is Jewish, criticized the police for failing to confiscate all of the anti-Semitic banners. A photograph of one of them appeared in a local newspaper Monday morning.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
