Ajax, the Dutch, the War

The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe's Darkest Hour

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By Simon Kuper

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A passionate, haunting and moving work that tells the breathtaking story of how Dutch Jews survived the unspeakable and came to play a strong role in the rise of the most exciting and revolutionary style of soccer — "Total Football" — the world had ever seen.

When most people think about the Netherlands, images of tulips and peaceful pot smoking residents spring to mind. Bring up soccer, and most will think of Johan Cruyff, the Dutch player thought to rival Pele in preternatural skill, and Ajax, one of the most influential soccer clubs in the world whose academy system for young athletes has been replicated around the globe.

In Ajax, The Dutch, The War: Soccer in Europe During the Second World War, bestselling author Simon Kuper shows how the story of soccer in Holland cannot be understood without investigating what really occurred in this country during WWII. For decades, the Dutch have enjoyed the reputation of having a "good war." The myth is even resonant in Israel where Ajax is celebrated. The fact is, the Jews suffered shocking persecution at the hands of Dutch collaborators. Holland had the second largest Nazi movement in Europe outside Germany, and in no other country except Poland was so high a percentage of Jews deported.

Kuper challenges Holland's historical amnesia and uses soccer — particularly the experience of Ajax, a club long supported by Amsterdam's Jews — as a window on wartime Holland and Europe. Through interviews with Resistance fighters, survivors, wartime soccer players and more, Kuper uncovers this history that has been ignored, and also finds out why the Holocaust had a profound effect on soccer in the country.

Ajax produced Cruyff but was also built by members of the Dutch resistance and Holocaust survivors. It became a surrogate family for many who survived the war and its method for producing unparalleled talent became the envy of clubs around the world.
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On Sale
Sep 11, 2012
Page Count
256 pages
Publisher
Bold Type Books
ISBN-13
9781568587240

Simon Kuper

About the Author

Simon Kuper is a British-French author and journalist for the Financial Times. He studied History and German at Oxford University, and attended Harvard University as a Kennedy Scholar, and he has written for the Observer, The Times and the Guardian, and also writes regularly for Dutch newspapers. He moved to Paris in 2001 and lives there with his French-American wife Pamela Druckerman and their daughters. 
 

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