Schalke 04 hosts successful kick-off event for the commemoration day in German football

Schalke 04 hosts successful kick-off event for the commemoration day in German football

On Thursday (January 20), FC Schalke 04, together with the Schalke fan initiative, organized the kick-off event on the occasion of the !Nie wieder (!Never again) commemoration day in German football. Due to Corona, a few guests came together in the VELTINS Arena – the majority of the participants followed the event in the live stream.

27 January marks the anniversary of the day on which the advancing Soviet army liberated the survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945, the year the war ended. With Remembrance Day in German football, the entire German football family commemorates the victims of National Socialism.

A variety of events are planned for the coming days throughout Germany. FC Schalke 04 and the Schalke Fan Initiative kicked off the day on Thursday evening with a joint invitation to an informative and focused themed event under this year’s motto “Everybody counts – no matter where you are”.

This year, the people who were persecuted and murdered because of their physical, mental or psychological disabilities are particularly remembered. For the National Socialists, they belonged to so-called “unworthy life”. Sick and disabled people were transported from psychiatric hospitals, from closed homes and from their own families to “killing centres”. Many tens of thousands were murdered, including more than 10,000 children.

Christina Rühl-Hamers, member of the board of FC Schalke 04, welcomed the guests on site and via livestream. This was followed, among other things, by talks and discussions by and with Eberhard Schulz, who co-founded the !Nie Wieder initiative, Daniela Wurbs from the BBAG’s “KickIn!” initiative, and Sabrina Führer, a Schalke supporter who has been blind since birth, who reported on her experiences as a person with a disability in football.

Susanne Franke from the Schalke Fan Initiative summed up the event:

“The most important learning from such an initiative is that we can only achieve change together – a look at history has shown that. Everything we have seen in the current actions only has fire and radiance if and because we do them together.”

On 27 January, EFDN will also commemorate the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust.