Men of the Match – Jews and Football Between the Two World Wars
New temporary exhibition of the Holocaust Memorial Center

Compared to Western European countries, football was late to establish itself in Hungary, with the first football balls arriving in the country somewhen in the last quarter of the 19th century. From the turn of the century onwards, however, football became a popular sport very quickly, with national championships being held from 1901. The very first international game in Europe was a Hungary versus Austria match in 1902. Thus football developed rapidly especially in the capital, and prior to the First World War, it was the Hungarian national team, one of Europe’s top teams that time, that played the most international games on the continent.

Since Hungarian football was a product of the turn of the century, and of the bourgeois circles of Budapest, it is natural that Hungarian Jews played a significant role in the sport. A considerable proportion of club managers, patrons and referees were of Jewish origin, but so were the footballers. However, football did not become a distinctively “Jewish sport”, but rather a sport of diversity.

The country’s political shift towards the right in the 1930s also triggered a changing of the guard in Hungarian football, with the sport going through a certain “Aryanization”. Besides illustrating this process of “Aryanization”, our temporary exhibition aims to give an insight into the lives of four football clubs and twelve footballers. The teams include three of the most important clubs of the era, the MTK Budapest Football Club, the Ferencvárosi Torna Club (FTC) and the Újpest Football Club (UTE), as well as the team with a particular Jewish identity, the Fencing and Athletics Club (VAC). In addition to ten prominent footballers and coaches of Jewish origin, with this exhibition we want to also remember those two players who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Moreover, we would like to evoke the atmosphere of the era, to show how football attracted tens of thousands of people to the stands week after week, to show the football heyday in which Hungarian Jewry played a significant role and contributed greatly to the golden age of the sport in Hungary.

Opening ceremony: 27 April 2025, 13:00
The exhibition is open until the end of 2025.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday: 10:00 – 18:00
Monday: closed
Ticket office closes: 17:00

The temporary exhibition is free of charge.

Programme of the opening

Program:
Words of welcome by
Prof. dr. Andor Grósz, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Holocaust Memorial Center

Opening words by
Vince Szalay-Bobrovniczky
Deputy Secretary of State for Civil and Social Relations of the Prime Minister

The exhibition is presented by
Sándor Berzi
Vice President of the Hungarian Football Federation

Guided tour of the exhibition by
Adél Nagy and Levente Olosz, curators of the exhibition

Location
1094 Budapest, 39 Páva street
Date
27 April, 2025, 1 pm

Galériák

Csatolmányok