When football fans cheered “Hoppauf Hakoah”

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Jewish sports club Hakoah, the Jewish Museum Vienna has set out on an interesting trail of discovery. Old photographs, documents and pennants underline the former sporting and cultural status among the population of Vienna of the club, which was broken up by the Nazis in 1938.

Hakoah and soccer

The name SC Hakoah became known through its soccer team, whose praises were sung by Friedrich Torberg, among others. In a short time the football section, founded in 1909 and one of the oldest sections in the club, climbed from the nether regions of the Vienna League (IIC class) to the top division. Among its most celebrated achievements were its defeat of the prestigious English club West Ham United, unbeaten by European clubs on its own soil, and the Austrian championship in 1925.

The ever-growing number of fans would chant “Hoppauf Hakoah!” (Come on, Hakoah!) – hence the name of the exhibition being organised by the Jewish Museum Vienna. The historical photos bear witness to the atmosphere that must have reigned on the terraces in the Krieau in those days.

The hard-won success did not last long however. After a tour of the USA many players were poached by American teams, which considerably weakened the club. Although it reached the semi-finals of the Austrian Cup once and the quarter-finals a few more times, Hakoah was never able to emulate its earlier achievements.

From grass to water

The water polo artists in the club didn’t share the same fate. They won the Austrian championship for the first time in 1926 and the bronze medal at the European Championships in France in 1931. Hakoah members were particularly successful at water sports as a whole. Hedy Bienenfeld was a swimming champion and won the bronze medal along with team colleague Fritzi Löwy at the 1927 European Championship. One of the most popular members of the club was Judith Deutsch, who was even elected Austrian Sportswoman of the Year in 1935.

Expulsion, extermination and belated atonement

Hakoah’s success came to an abrupt end when the Nazis arrived in Austria. They lost no time in banning the Jewish club which had once brought so much pleasure to Vienna’s 180,000 Jews. The name Hakoah was expunged from the lists along with its members. Those who were unable to escape in time were arrested and those who were not killed immediately, like internationals Max Scheuer and Ali Schönfeld, were deported to concentration camps – a terrible fate that ended in the death of many players and officials.

In spite of all this, the few surviving Jews and returnees reformed SC Hakoah just two months after the end of the war. Even today, the past has not been completely obliterated. For a long time the confiscated property including the football ground in the Krieau was not returned to the club. Restitution was finally agreed in 2002 when the club was given a 19,500 m² plot of land close to the Ernst Happel Stadium to replace the site seized by the Nazis. In March 2008 the first section of the new sports centre was officially opened.

Social centre

Hakoah – the Hebrew word for “strength” – no longer has a soccer team. Today the club concentrates on the traditional Hakoah sports like swimming and tennis, along with karate and basketball. Despite the fact that it has far fewer members than it did between the wars, it is again looking optimistically to the future. The exhibition could well help in this respect: as the accompanying press release says, it is designed above all to revive the memory of the golden era of Jewish sport in Vienna.