In late 2011, less than a year before the inauguration of the European Football Championship Euro 2012, organized by Poland and Ukraine, Polish media fiercely discussed the Israeli midfielder Maor Melikson who could play for the Polish national team. It was possible because his mother, Rivka, was born in Legnica and left Poland with her family as a young girl.
After a transfer from Hapoel Beer Sheva in January 2011, this excellent footballer became a favorite of fans and the undisputed star of Wisła Kraków- football club, after scoring the only and victorious goal in the derby match against Cracovia on May 15, 2011. Winning that match over the eternal rival, known in the football world in Poland as the holy war, sealed the 13th and the last so far title of the Polish champion for Wisła Kraków. Ultimately, Maor Melikson did not play in the Polish national team, but he played 26 times in international matches for the Israeli national team, in which he scored 3 goals.
Apart from football experts, few people know that in the period before World War II, many Jewish footballers played in the Polish league as well as in the national team of Poland. Jewish clubs – Jutrzenka Kraków in 1927 and Hasmonea Lwów in 1927-1928 also played in the Polish first football league (the highest league).
The collocation “holy war” was coined for the derby match of Krakow’s Cracovia and Wisła teams by the player of Cracovia- Ludwik Gintel, when in the dressing room before the match played in 1924 he shouted to his friends “Well, let’s go to this holy war”. Interestingly, even earlier in Krakow, this term was used to describe a competition between two Kraków’s Jewish clubs, Makabi and Jutrzenka. Before moving to Cracovia, the aforementioned Gintel was a junior player of the latter club.
Jutrzenka and Makabi in the 1920s played an important role in Polish football. In the regional A class in Krakow, only Wisła and Cracovia could keep up with them. Ludwik Gintel in the colors of Cracovia became the top scorer of the Polish league in 1928 after scoring 28 goals, and he played 328 games for the club, initially playing as a striker and later as a defender. At that time, he played for the Polish national team, participating in a total of 12 matches between the years 1921 to 1925. He appeared in the first historic match between the national team and Hungary in Budapest on December 18, 1921. He played with the same opponent on May 14, 1922 in Krakow, that match ended in a 0:3 defeat. In that game, when the ball slipped on his shoe and entered the gate, Ludwik Gintel became the first scorer of own goal in the history of the Polish national team.
Few people are also aware of the fact that the first historic goal for the Polish national team was scored by Józef Klotz in the match against Sweden played on May 28, 1922 in Stockholm. It was the third performance of the Polish representation in history. The match ended with the score 2: 1 for Poland.
Józef Klotz was born on January 2, 1900 in Kraków. He was the son of a Jewish shoemaker. In 1918, he volunteered for the Polish Army, participating in the war against Soviet Russia (1919-1921). He was demobilized in November 1920. During his football career, he represented the two clubs of the aforementioned Jutrzenka Kraków (1910-1925) and Makabi Warszawa. With 185 cm, he was a stout defender which at that time was not a common height. He played two matches for the Polish national team – the first mentioned before, the 3-0 loss against Hungary in May 1922, and the second, which allowed him to enter the history of Polish football for good. The sport newspaper “Przegląd Sportowy” reported: “In the 27th minute, Szperling ends the run to the center. Hemming not attacked by anyone unnecessarily slaps the ball with his hand: penalty. Who should be entrusted with the role of an executor?
Klotz was the only player in his team to beat penalties with good results, and the captain entrusts him to do it. Klotz calmly shoots the ball in the left corner under the crossbar without any running. The goalkeeper didn’t even move. Józef Klotz’s performance was positively assessed; apart from scoring a goal, he was a real mainstay of the defense of the Polish national team.
Despite a good performance, Józef Klotz did not play again for the Polish national team. Perhaps the reason for this was that he played in Jutrzenka, which fell from the first league to the then regional A-class, like Makabi Warsaw, and both clubs did not participate in the struggle for the Polish championship later.
After the German attack on Poland in September 1939, Warsaw was incorporated into the German General Government administered by the German occupiers. German occupation authorities decided to create a ghetto in Warsaw in 1940 for the Jewish population. Among them was Józef Klotz, who was probably shot by the Germans in one of the mass executions in 1941. The fate of his Polish wife, with whom he married in Włocławek in 1925, and their daughter are unknown.
After several decades, on June 10, 2019, before the Poland-Israel match in the qualifying rounds of the European Championship, Józef Klotz’s nephew Yoav Dekel received the Polish national team jersey with the name of his uncle and opened a special exhibition dedicated to him. The celebrations were also attended by the well-known coach Avram Grant, who recently expressed his interest in leading the Polish national team after former coach Paulo Sousa resigned.