The society house in the palm garden offered space for over 200 guests on Monday evening.

The reason for the numerous appearances - the hall was full despite the 2-G rule and the reduced number of guests - was an invitation from the German Football Association (DFB) to this year's awarding of the Julius Hirsch Prize.

On behalf of the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum, which was awarded the first prize in 2021, its director Matthias Thoma accepted the award together with Eintracht board spokesman Axel Hellmann.

Thoma spoke of a "great award that makes us very proud". With the foundation, the DFB has been commemorating the Jewish national player Julius Hirsch, who was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered in 1943, annually since 2005. It is awarded to initiatives, people or associations that campaign against anti-Semitism, discrimination or racism as well as for understanding and against the exclusion of people.

Among the guests in the historic ballroom were the two DFB interim presidents, Rainer Koch and Peter Peters, who spoke at the beginning of the event.

Peters spoke of "the power of football" that one had to use to jointly warn and remember the dark National Socialist past.

Koch gave the award "extremely high importance", as it is part of the "self-image of the DFB" to work against all forms of discrimination.

In-depth reappraisal of the Nazi past

In the opinion of the DFB, the Eintracht Frankfurt Museum succeeded in doing this in an outstanding way: the museum had set a far-reaching mark through the work of remembrance it had carried out. The processing of the Nazi past was carried out in depth after there had been no processing of any kind in football Germany for a long time. Thoma spoke of the “power of emotions in football”, which makes it easy for the museum to constantly stir and look through memories.

The second and third prizes went to the Berlin association “Gesellschaftsspiele e. V. “and FC Victoria Wittenberg from Saxony-Anhalt. In the case of the second-placed club from Berlin, the DFB praised the educational work that aims to convey social values ​​in schools. Chairman Rico Noack emphasized that the “playing field is next to the pitch” and that the club “as an association of football friends” is approaching social issues through fan culture.

In addition to musical performances by students from the Goethe-Gymnasium, the 2020 honors took place on Monday evening in the Palmengarten, which had been canceled in the previous year due to the pandemic circumstances: The first place winner of the previous year, the association Háwar.help eV, was awarded for its “Scoring Girls “-Initiative that aims to facilitate integration for refugee girls through football.

Another award went to a cooperation between TSG Akademie Hoffenheim and Centropa for the educational film "Zahor - Remember yourself".

The joint project between Topf & Sons Erfurt and the “Spirit of Football” initiative was also honored.

The gala evening was rounded off by the prizes of honor that went to the filmmaker Oded Breda from Israel (2020) and the two scientists Michael Vaněk and Professor Kevin Simpson (2021).