Leo Goldstein ( he, לאו גולדשטיין) was an American-Israeli

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

referee who survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

thanks to his expertise in the rules of soccer.

Biography

Leo Goldstein was a Polish-born Jew. He was deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

and was condemned to the gas chambers but was suddenly pulled aside by an SS guard who claimed to be a German international soccer player. He was ordered to return to the barracks and serve as a referee in soccer games between soldiers and guards at Auschwitz and nearby camps. After the war he immigrated to Israel, but eventually settled in New York, where he worked as a taxi driver and a referee of soccer games in the

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th Street in the north.Jackson, Kenneth L. "B ...

Sports career

Goldstein refereed for the American Soccer League in the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming a

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

international referee between 1959 and 1967. Goldstein was active as an assistant referee at

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

s, officiating the

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

matches in the group stages in

1962 Events January * January 1 – Western Samoa becomes independent from New Zealand. * January 3 – Pope John XXIII excommunicates Fidel Castro for preaching communism. * January 8 – Harmelen train disaster: 93 die in the wors ...

. He also officiated in the

1959 Pan American Games The 1959 Pan American Games were held in Chicago, Illinois, United States between August 28 and September 7, 1959. Host city selection One city initially submitted a bid to host the 1959 Pan American Games that was recognized by the Pan Ame ...

and 1962 World Cup qualifiers.RSSSF
"World Cup 1962 qualifications"
Retrieved on 28 April 2013. Goldstein is a member of the

National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum The National Soccer Hall of Fame is a private, non-profit institution established in 1979 and currently located in Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. The Hall of Fame honors soccer achievements in the United States. Induction ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldstein, Leo Year of birth missing Year of death missing 1962 FIFA World Cup referees American soccer referees American taxi drivers Auschwitz concentration camp survivors 20th-century Polish Jews Polish emigrants to Israel Israeli emigrants to the United States American people of Polish-Jewish descent Jewish American referees and umpires

Biography

Sports career

See also

References