German football team Borussia Mönchengladbach visited the Bergen-Belsen memorial site. Players participated in a guide tour of the former Nazi concentration camp that lasted around two hours.
“In 1970, we were the first German football team to travel to Israel with Borussia to play a match there. A deep friendship developed between Borussia and Israel that has lasted until today. We are aware of the responsibility that has arisen from this and always try to live up to it – be it through our recent special exhibition in the FohlenWelt ‘Responsibility in Football Boots’ or this visit to the Bergen-Belsen memorial,” said Borussia’s Vice-President Rainer Bonhof in his welcoming address to the team.
Vice-President Dr Stefan Stegemann added: “More than 50,000 people lost their lives at this place. We are here today in memory of these people and against forgetting. Our mission, today and in the future, is to stand up against this so that such atrocities do not happen again.”
During the approximately two-hour tour of the memorial, the team also had repeated opportunities to look at the numerous original objects and media in the exhibition and thus learn about many of the fates of the prisoners in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. At the end of the tour, captain Lars Stindl laid a wreath on behalf of all Borussians at a memorial plaque with the inscription “In memory of the victims of National Socialism”.
