A story forgotten by everyone for more than sixty years. The story of a football coach – perhaps the greatest in his time – who will be deported to Auschwitz to atone for the only crime attributed to him: being Jewish. The reading by Menoventi theatre company is based on Matteo Marani’s book-inquiry Dallo scudetto ad Auschwitz (From the Championship to Auschwitz), in which the enthusiasm for a coach who revolutionized ‘The Game of Football’ coexists with the annoyance aroused by the behaviour of Italians and Europeans in face of the grovelling anti-Semitism that was plaguing the continent.
There is a family on the run at the centre of the story, two hunted children, rejected by school, deprived of a language, separated from friends. Their story is heartbreaking, their words weigh like boulders. These words have come down to us thanks to Marani’s painstaking accuracy and to the affection of a child who has never forgotten his old friend.

The performance is presented by the Italian Cultural Institute in Bucharest in co-operation with the State Jewish Theatre on the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024.