Inside of the concentration camps, prisoners came from all walks of life. Regardless of
someones job or background, if they fit into the Nazis criteria for inmates they were rounded
up and deported there. Inside Auschwitz the horrors of the Holocaust were played out,
and it became the largest centre used by the SS and because of this hundreds of thousands
were killed there. The gas chambers were being used on a daily basis with thousands being
sent to their deaths. If prisoners weren’t fit enough to work inside the camp they were
sent almost immediately to their deaths, and today we look at one of these men who murdered
inside of Auschwitz. Eddy Hamel had an interesting career and life before he entered the concentration
camp, he was a footballer who played for Ajax, however the Germans had very little regard
for this, just seeing him for his ethnicity. Today we look at the ‘Horrific Execution
Of Eddy Hamel, the Footballer of Auschwitz.’
Eddy Hamel was an American born football player, born in New York City on the 21st October
1902. He had American citizenship, and was Jewish. His mother and father had moved from
the Netherlands to settle, they moved the year before Eddy was born. His father Moses
was a diamond polisher, and he must have found work hard to come by in his native land. In
his teenage years the family moved to Amsterdam, however Eddy had his first taste of football.
In his youth he played for Amsterdamsche FC and he had been noticed by bigger clubs such
was his skill. Eddy Hamel was approached by the biggest club in the Netherlands Ajax to
play for them. At the time Ajax were incredibly popular, and Hamel became the first American
born player to compete in a top flight European league.
He spent 9 years with Ajax, and was nicknamed the Ringleader for his skill. He played on
the right wing, and was known for being a very quick winger who was a good dibbler of
the ball. He would cross the ball into the box, in the hope that the striker would finish
the chance off. At the time, the football ground in Amsterdam was overcrowded with fans
wanting to see his skill, and at half time the crowd would swap sides of the ground to
focus on his attacking play. He has been compared to David Beckham in terms of the way he played,
and he went on to play 125 games for Ajax over 9 years scoring 8 goals.
The club of Ajax itself celebrates their and the city of Amsterdam’s Jewish heritage
which at the time of the Second World War was home to 140,000 jews. Hamel was a first
team regular, and was the first Jewish player to play for Ajax. He was a very talented player,
and before the war was noted to have been a very skilled player, and his own fan club
even emerged in the 1920s. During the 1926-1927 season, Hamel scored 5 goals, and in August
1929 he married his wife Johanna in a synagogue in Amsterdam. The following year he set up
the first goal in a 6-0 win for Ajax, however then he suffered a bad injured.
He injured his knee, and never played for the A squad again. He was a success on the
field and was very popular, however he was never paid. Euroopean clubs at this time were
unpaid, and the players received no money being forced to take a normal job to support
their family. They weren’t professional, and Hamel was forced to work as a clerk at
a grain wholesaler, and after his injury had to take more hours. In 1932, he started to
coach two lower league clubs, one of these was in a fishing village outside of Amsterdam
and the other was in Alkmaar.
This is all around the time that Hitler starts to rise to power in Germany, becoming the
Chancellor of Germany before he seizes overall control of the country. Eddy and his wife
then had two children, and by this point Hamel was coaching 2 teams and being paid some money
for this, with one club paying him in fish to feed his family. He was a good coach, when
he was at Alkmaar, the club won the league. Also another club he worked at won 3 league
titles in the 10 years he worked there, and locals lauded Hamel a hero and the man who
changed everything for them.
The Second World War broke out on September 1st 1939, when German invaded Poland. The
invasion was quick, swift and brutal but eight months later Hitler focussed his attention
to the Netherlands and he took control very quick.y. In Amsterdam, the Nazis placed strict
restrictions on the jewish population, banning them from the freedoms that anyone would take
as a given.
They were banned from being out after a certain time, they were banned from even owning telephones
and later were banned from participating in organised sport, and sports clubs. This policy
in particular affected Eddy Hamel as he was no longer allowed to coach, and soon part
of the city of Amsterdam became a Jewish ghetto, where Jews were forced to live in horrific
conditions surrounded by barbed wire in a prison.
Eddy Hamel, his wife and their children were living across the town in a second floor flat
close to where Anne Frank and her family lived. Hamel continued to play football in defiance
to the Nazi rules turning out for a legends team called Lucky Ajax whilst the German occupation
happened. On October 27th 1942, he was stopped by two police officers who served with the
Jewish affairs department in the Amsterdam Police who were collaborating with the Nazis.
Hamel stated that he told the officers he was born in New York, however was arrested
and had been caught in public without wearing the Jewish star. He stated he was a coach,
and it has been alleged that he was actually betrayed. Eddy Hamel along with his family
and children were rounded up and taken to a detention centre before being transported
to Westerbork camp, a Nazi transit camp 100 miles northeast of Amsterdam.
Westerbork was where Jews were kept before being transported to death camps, and here
Hamel met Leon Greenman a bookseller born in London. Greenman’s account of what happened
to Hamel have helped to tell his story. The prisoners were informed that they were sent
to Poland to work for the Germans. They arrived in Aushwitz, and the family were then split
up. They had been transported on the train, and when they arrived at Auschwitz, Hamel
had not eaten for 3 days. His first meal was a herb soup with black coloured leaves, and
he survived on the occasional scrap of bread, raw potato or anything he could find.
He was being starved to death, and was kept in a barracks filled with 1000 men. Greenman
and Hamel shared a bunk on the highest level, and this had no mattress on it. The temperature
in the winter was horrific and Hamel and Greenman spoke about their roots, with Hamel being
an American citizen. Together the agreed not to speak about the women and children who
were on the train with them, and they noticed the smoke coming from the chimneys of the
crematoria, and they convinced themselves they were just factories, ignoring the true
evils of what was occurring.
Together the men worked hard in the snow, and it was noted that Eddie Hamel was always
a gentleman. It’s considered that if Hamel had outlined his Ameircan citizenship to guards,
then chances are he would have been taken elsewhere and treated better than he was.
In today’s world, Eddy Hamel would have been recognised also, but inside Aushcwitz
to the Germans he was just another prisoner. Three months after arriving at the camp, Hamel
along with his barrack were taken into a room and forced to strip naked. They stepped forward
one by one and were examined by a doctor. They were being inspected to see if they were
healthy to continue working, and if not they were then taken to the gas chambers to be
murdered. Shortly before this, Eddy Hamel spoke to Greenman and told him how he had
a sweeping and an abscess in his mouth which was rather noticeable.
After the inspection, Eddy Hamel was taken away, and Leon Greneman never saw him again.
Eddy Hamel was then taken from the rooms to be taken to the gas chambers as he was deemed
not fit enough to continue to work. He would have been rounded up with hundreds of other
prisoners, and then marched to the chambers before being forced to strip and then step
into the execution chamber. Inside hundreds were locked in, and then within minutes the
Zyklon B gas would have been administered and Eddy Hamel was killed.
The Germans logged his date of death as the 30th April 1943, but the SS often waited until
the last day of each month to close accounts and records of those who had been murdered.
Eddy Hamel died not knowing also that his wife and sons had been murdered within just
hours of their arrival at Auschwitz. They were taken straight off the train and then
sent straight to the gas chambers for their deaths. Records stated that when Hamel arrived
at the camp, two other trains carrying over 5000 jews arrived, and of these 4500 were
sent straight to the gas chambers and were killed.
Eddy Hamel was a talented and skilled footballer, who in today’s world would probably have
made a lot of money in the modern footballing world. However during the 1920s when he made
his name, he was seen as a hero to many people living within Amsterdam. He gave people hope
and pride in their city, heritage and club. However to the Nazis and the Germans he was
simply just another Jew who they deemed needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. He
was clearly a very celebrated footballer and also a man who was devoted to his family,
his coaching and helping other people. Eddy Hamel’s death inside Auschwitz would be
one of the 1.1million murdered inside of the camp.
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