Polish football fans daub antisemitic graffiti on buildings in Woking in football feud

An antisemitic graffiti battle between rival Polish football fans appears to have played out on buildings in Woking. An RTS Widzew Łódź appears to have declared the greatness of the team on a garage door, which a rival has attempted to call the other’s team Jewish, which is intended as an insult. RTS Widzew Łódź had Jewish players before the Holocaust, and even today rival fans burn effigies of Jews as a means of showing their dislike for the club’s Jewish history, even though any Jewish history in the club’s past was annihilated in the Holocaust.

The Woking News and Mail brought the story to light, publishing photographs of the graffiti on two buildings and a garage door. The red graffiti on the garage door states that RTS Widzew Łódź “will never die”. It then appears that someone has added the black graffiti of a star of David. It is very common for Polish football fans to use “Jew” as a term of abuse against RTS Widzew Łódź fans, and this is confirmed by the graffiti on the walls of the buildings: “Zydzew” is a combination of the name of RTS Widzew Łódź with the Polish word for Jew. The name of the club has been scribbled out on the garage door, and it then seems likely that the blue graffiti was added, repeating the letters “RTS” over the star of David.

It seems that for whoever painted this graffiti, the murder of ninety percent of Poland’s three million Jews during the Holocaust was not enough.

Nobody should have to live with the distress caused by threats and intimidation, whether they are expressed in-person or through acts of vandalism and destruction. Anybody with information should contact the police by calling 101.

Image credit: Woking News and Mail