On Ajax – Uzi Dann in Haaretz:

‘Since the '50s, the Dutch government and the Amsterdam municipality have commemorated the Dutch Jews who were deported and murdered. But Ajax never held a memorial for the club's former staff and players, including youth players, who were killed in the Holocaust. In fact, Ajax didn't even take part in the building of the national soccer federation's monument to the Dutch soccer players who were killed in the war.
Four years ago, two members of the club's heritage committee – Evert Vermeer and Max Flam, whose Holocaust-survivor mother recently died at 106 – noted to the board that Ajax had never officially recognized the club's former staff and players who died in the war. Vermeer and Flam spent a year conducting an extensive survey and submitted their findings on Ajax people who were deported and murdered by the Nazis.’

(…)

‘The work by Vermeer and Flam and the questions they raised gave a jolt to the club's collective conscience. Less than a year ago, Ajax dedicated a memorial plaque at the team's training grounds next to the Johan Cruyff Arena.
The plaque contains the names of 17 former staff and players who perished in the camps or in the resistance; they include Hamel and Josef de Haan, a former youth player and employee of Ajax who was killed in 1942 at age 25. The club also inscribed Vermeer and Flam's names on a wall of "Ajax members who have made a special contribution to the club."
When the plaque was dedicated, Ernst Boekhorst, Ajax's chairman, wrote to the Ajax community: "A pressing question that arises from all that happened is why did we continue playing soccer then? Shouldn't we, as a club, have shown solidarity with our Jewish comrades? And what would I have done if I had been chairman then? "The general position of sports associations in those years was one of collaboration with and obedience to the occupier. This approach derived from opportunistic but also neutral motives, out of a belief that sports should remain separate from the political reality.
"Today, too, for many people – within our ranks as well – sports and politics are seen as completely separate. For example, we don't allow banners with political messages in our stadiums. Now we have given this chapter in our history the recognition it deserves. The display of the plaque serves as a posthumous tribute to these Ajax members."’

Read the article here.

The belief that sports should remain separate from political reality is still widespread.

When is it time to stop playing soccer?

I’m afraid that only in hindsight some people will conclude: maybe we should have stopped playing soccer.

And then they will be hunted for decades to come.