Italian soccer club Lazio slammed for anti-Semitic depiction of Anne Frank

The Italian soccer federation sharply rebuked fans of the Italian Lanzo soccer club who this week littered the Stadio Olimpico in Rome with images of Anne Frank, the young Jewish diarist who died in the Holocaust, wearing a sweater of the rival Roma team. Lanzo’s fans have a long history of racist and anti-Semitic incidents.

The Italian federation ordered a passage from the Frank diary to be read out before every match this week “to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust” and a minute’s silence observed at the games. Lazio’s president Claudio Lolito visited Rome’s main synagogue and announced that the club would organize annual trips for 200 young fans to the Auschwitz concentration camp to “educate them not to forget.”