TSG Wieseck Youth Development Academy
 

Educational trip Auschwitz

75 years ago, the prisoners from Auschwitz were liberated. In order to also educate our players about the crimes of that time, we embarked on a journey to the concentration camp in Auschwitz in March 2020. Through their role model function, our coaches and trainers have an enormously strong influence on young people, not only in everyday life and in dealing with their teammates, but also in educating them about what happened at that time.

As a club, we therefore have an educational mission, which we are pursuing with the trip to Auschwitz. Soccer is not everything. We take it upon ourselves to develop our players not only in terms of soccer, but also in terms of character and social development. One important topic is educating and preparing young people for adulthood.

Part of enlightenment in Germany is anti-Semitism, not only because of German history. "There are 15-year-olds in our club who don't know what Auschwitz is. That motivated me to show them. In my opinion, society is currently developing in the wrong direction. I have the feeling that the language is becoming more and more brutalized. Xenophobic talk is no longer contemptible and that bothers me massively. Compassion and empathy must not become foreign words. With this journey we want to show that every human being is worth living, it doesn't matter from which country he comes. We cannot change the world, but we can try to convey values to our environment," says JFZ director Deniz Solmaz.

The first visit to Auschwitz took place in March 2020 and the young footballers learned a lot and were educated. Our players were very shocked to be there where many lives were taken a few years ago. Unfortunately, due to the Corona Pandemic, this year's planned visit was cancelled. Preparations for 2022 are already underway.

Many nations come together in our association. The proportion of young people with a migration background is now around 50%.

Through such projects as the annual trip to Auschwitz and Dachau or our corner flags in rainbow colors, our children and young people learn from an early age that diversity is great and important.

Humanity and empathy must not become foreign words. Every person is worth living. It doesn't matter which country they come from. We can't change the world, but we can try to impart values to our environment.

"We think that the educational mission of a sports club is more than just points and goals. This educational trip and the preparatory events, should become a permanent part of TSG's schedule. We will now do this tour every year with different players. At some point, I would like to be able to say that every player who leaves TSG for the active side has been able to take advantage of this offer. As a club, we are happy to let this cost us something," says TSG boss Solmaz.

We as a club and every single employee stand for diversity and religious freedom with our values.

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A week after our educational trip to Auschwitz, two of our TSGU17 players were interviewed by the "Gießener Allgemeine" about their impressions. The two answered thoughtfully and had some thoughts about the topic, but read for yourself.

to the interview>>