As the pleasant face of Daniel Loercher, the subject of a recent Friday morning Zoom interview, comes into focus, I notice that he is smiling broadly. Loercher, the co-founder of “what matters,” a German non-profit organization that helps organizations and corporations develop projects addressing antisemitism, racism, and other forms of discrimination, is visiting Israel for the third time this year, and he is clearly in his element.
The thirty-nine-year-old Loercher was born and raised near Stuttgart in southern Germany, and though he learned about the Holocaust and the events of World War II in school, he admits that it didn’t make a significant impression on him growing up.
Loercher’s interest in the Holocaust and combating antisemitism came about somewhat serendipitously when he visited the site of the Dachau concentration camp near Munich in 2008. Shortly thereafter, a photographer friend sent him some pictures he had taken on a visit to the Auschwitz memorial site.
Loercher decided to visit Auschwitz as well and spent four days visiting the memorial site and the nearby town of Oświęcim. “I became interested in the Holocaust, and I started to read books about it,” he recalls. Loercher visited many additional Holocaust memorial sites and says that while at Auschwitz, he came to the realization that antisemitism still exists in the world today.
A devoted fan of the Borussia Dortmund soccer team, Loercher worked for the club from 2013 until 2021, first in its fan relations department and later as head of its Corporate Responsibility department, managing its anti-discrimination efforts.
While Loercher and Dr. Andreas Kahrs founded ‘what matters’ in 2021, he continues to work with Borussia Dortmund, acting as the club’s spokesman on behalf of Holocaust remembrance, combating antisemitism and discrimination. The NGO has also cooperated with the World Jewish Congress in several projects.
In 2011, Loercher and Kahrs organized the first educational trip for fans from Borussia Dortmund to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site. This was followed by many other projects for the club’s fans, employees, and sponsors, as well as the DFL German football league and the DFB Cultural Foundation.
Loercher says that the trips to Auschwitz, which can accompany 30 participants, generate a great amount of interest, with between 150 and 200 fans applying for each trip. He leads 15 to 20 visits each year to Auschwitz and, before each trip, conducts meetings with the participants. “We prepare them, and we find the names of Jews from Dortmund who were deported to Auschwitz,” he says.
By focusing on the local citizens from their town who were taken to Auschwitz, Loercher forges a connection between their identity and the history of what took place. After each tour, they have a post-educational program in which they discuss current antisemitism.
Frequently, Loercher will take participants to visit the Jewish community and learn more about Jewish life. “It’s really interesting to see that for many people, it’s changing their perspectives and is empowering. They feel much more comfortable speaking up afterward.”
Loercher says that many of the participants remain in touch long after their visits to Auschwitz have ended. “It’s not a short-term solution for a problem. It’s a long term engagement that leads to people engaging and remaining engaged in the topic.”
Loercher shares that educating his fellow German citizens about the Holocaust has two purposes – learning about the past and guiding behavior for the future. “Very often in our programs,” he explains, “the participants ask, ‘How would I have behaved back then? Then we interrupt, and we say, listen, ‘The question is wrong.’ We look at Auschwitz from the end. We have knowledge, we know what happened there, and we can’t go back in time. The most important question we should ask ourselves in reflection of history is how we behave nowadays. What is our field of interaction? What impact can we have on society today, and how can we speak up as a group?”
Without his interest in soccer, Loercher says, he would not have had the opportunity to learn about the Holocaust as he has and in the way that he has taught others. The fact that most of the participants on visits to Auschwitz and other sites are part of a group – whether they are factory workers or fans of a particular team – enables them to visit Holocaust memorial sites and learn about them within a group framework.
Loercher acknowledges that in the past, there has been a great deal of antisemitism in European soccer but says that great strides have been made over the past twenty years to lessen this type of behavior. Sports, in his view, can play a significant role in combating antisemitism and discrimination because it reaches all levels of society.
“Sports fans are rich, poor, well-educated, less educated, workers, lawyers – in every different spectrum and age group with different religions. We have a platform that we can use to bring these people together to talk about these topics. And therefore, sports and soccer, in particular, has a social responsibility for society.’
In 2015, Loercher was invited to Israel for Yom HaShoah and, while there, visited Beit Theresienstadt, a Holocaust research and educational institution in Kibbutz Givat Haim. He also began to meet with members of the Jewish community in Dortmund.
Loercher will be returning to Israel frequently over the next few months. He was at Yad Vashem for the recent Yom HaShoah ceremonies and spends time in Israel preparing programs for use in Germany. He adds that since October 7, his visits to Israel have taken on an added, personal dimension of displaying solidarity for Israel and the hostages in Gaza.
He has numerous friends among members of the communities in the Gaza Envelope and after our interview, was going to be driving south, to enjoy a Friday night Shabbat dinner with friends in the Negev community of Ruhama.
Since October 7, Loercher says that European countries that dealt extensively with the Holocaust and its effect on society have handled the antisemitic overtones of October 7 effectively. However, those countries that did not have a deeper understanding of the Holocaust cannot grasp the complexity of the situation here in Israel.
With that being said, Loercher says that most Europeans are open and accessible to receiving and accepting a different point of view and can be rallied to Israel’s cause.
As our interview concludes, Loercher mentions the plight of the 59 hostages still being held in Gaza and says, “Even though sometimes people say, that goes without saying, you still have to say it.” Last year, he organized a local “Hostage Square” in Dortmund, with empty chairs signifying the number of hostages being held in Gaza, which was 156 at that time.
“Ten thousand people walked through the square,” he reports, and most said that they didn’t know that there were still hostages there. They asked me what we could do about it and who the hostages were.” Afterward, he says, many people purchased flowers from the local flower shop and placed them on the empty chairs. “We need to giving a hand to those who are quiet, and give them the chance to understand,” he concludes.
