Józef Klotz (2 January 1900 – 1941) was a

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

footballer who played centre-half. He scored the first-ever goal for the Poland national football team. He was killed by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

in 1941.

Biography

Klotz was born in

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

, southern Poland, and was Jewish."Poland honors national soccer player murdered in Holocaust"
''Israel HaYom'', June 11, 2019. His father was a shoemaker. He scored the first-ever goal for the Poland national football team. He scored it against Sweden in Stockholm in May 1922, in the team's third international match. Klotz played for two clubs. He played first for Jutrzenka Kraków, which he joined as a youth team player and played for from 1912 to 1925, and then for Maccabi Warszawa from 1925 to 1929 (both teams were Jewish minority teams). He retired as a player in 1930. He was imprisoned in the

in 1940. He was murdered there by the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

in 1941. In 2019, Klotz was honored by the

Polish Football Association The Polish Football Association ( pl, Polski Związek Piłki Nożnej; PZPN) is the governing body of association football in Poland. It organizes the Polish football leagues (without the Ekstraklasa), the Polish Cup and the Polish national footb ...

Statistics

Club career

* 1910–1925 Jutrzenka Kraków * 1925–1929 Maccabi Warszawa

International

* 14.5.1922

Poland 0:3 Hungary * 28.5.1922 Stockholm Sweden 1:2 Poland

References

Sources