A Welsh World War Two hero and footballer is being honoured by an English premier league club in its fight against racism and anti-semitism.
Ron Jones, known as the , and two other players are depicted on a giant mural at the entrance to Chelsea FC’s West End Wall at Stamford Bridge.
The 12m by 7m painting, by renowned street artist Solomon Souza, is part of Chelsea FC’s Say No to Antisemitism campaign funded by club owner Roman Abramovich.
The giant painting of Jewish football players and British POWs sent to Nazi camps, was made to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and will be displayed on the wall until the end of the season.
Ron, from Newport, was incarcerated in the E715 Wehrmacht British POW camp, part of the Auschwitz complex, after being captured aged 23 fighting for Allied forces in Libya in 1942.
A lance corporal in the 1st Battalion Welch Regiment he was imprisoned for three years until the end of the war when he survived the death march out.
Put to work alongside Jewish slave labourers at IG Farben’s infamous chemical factory Ron saw first hand the devastating effects of bigotry but as a POW had privileges, including the occasional opportunity to play football with a ball fashioned from rags.
Taken by guards to play the game on fields beside Birkenau, the POWs saw “walking skeletons” at work and smoke from crematoria, Ron recalled.
Talking to WalesOnline about his experiences before his death last year, the veteran, who still sold poppies until the age of 100, said no one must ever forget the atrocity of the Holocaust and he considered himself one of the lucky ones as a POW.
“We made a rag ball and someone bribed the guards with fags to let us use the field between our camp and the Jews’ camp to play football.
“I was the goalkeeper. It was exciting for us to get out. There were guards with rifles but they didn’t really bother us.”
Dividing themselves into nation teams of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ron was goalie for Wales, carefully making a badge from old socks, a badge he kept carefully in a chocolate box after the war.
Bruce Buck, Chairman of Chelsea FC said: “Millions of people were murdered during the Holocaust.
“By sharing the images of these three individual football players on our stadium, we hope to inspire future generations to always fight against anti-semitism, discrimination and racism,wherever they find it.”
The two other players honoured in the mural are Julius Hirsch and Árpád Weisz.
Julius Hirsch was a German Jewish international footballer and the first Jewish player to represent the German national team. He played seven international matches for Germany between 1911 and 1913. Hirsch was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp on March 1, 1943. His exact date of death is unknown.
Árpád Weisz was a Hungarian Jewish football player and manager who played for Törekvés SE in his native Hungary, in Czechoslovakia for Makabi Brno and in Italy for Alessandria and Internazionale.
Weisz was a member of the Hungarian squad at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris. After retiring as a player in 1926, Weisz settled in Italy and became an assistant coach for Alessandria before moving to F.C. Internazionale Milano. He, his wife and two children were deported to Auschwitz where they were murdered.
Ron Jones returned to Newport after the war and was a volunteer for the Poppy Appeal for over 30 years, up until his death at the age of 102 in 2019.
