JUNE NEAL: The IOC and the Value of Jewish Lives
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The IOC and the value of Jewish lives
In 2005, I met Donald Cohan, an American Jew who had won a bronze medal in yachting at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. At the time, I was writing for a major newspaper in my home state, working on an essay about Steven Spielberg’s upcoming movie Munich – which drew fire for its lack of fidelity to historical fact and its attempt to reduce Israel’s justified response to a thin gruel of moral equivalence.
I had conducted a lot research, but with Cohan, I struck gold: a bright, articulate man who had kept every German newspaper printed since the moment the press knew the Palestinians had taken the Israeli athletes hostage.
Cohan was nearly shot himself. He had brought his wife to Munich, but spouses were not allowed to stay in the athletes’ dorms. Cohan would steal out evenings to visit her. He had no idea that while he was gone, Black September terrorists had, with the help of some unsuspecting drunken Americans, scaled the fence to get to the Israeli athletes.
Not long after, Cohan, dressed in his athletic suit (not unlike the generic garb which the terrorists had worn to blend in) tried to sneak back to his room, climbing over that same fence. He was stunned: German police were screaming at him with rifles cocked and dogs barking. Using panicky bits of German, Cohan barely avoided being shot.
Then, Cohan learned what had just taken place. The Palestinians had rushed to Connollystrasse – the street leading to the rooms where the Israeli wrestlers and their coaches were sleeping. They murdered two of them and held the rest hostage, demanding that Israel release 234 prisoners and Germany two more.
The whole world was watching. Nearly 900 million people in 100 countries were staring at their television sets in shock as German police were unable to stop the carnage.
Morning breaks and, unbelievably, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) declares the games will continue as scheduled. Israel’s then-Prime Minister Golda Meir, and many members of the press, are appalled that the games are going on while the Israelis are facing death. Pageantry on the field; indoors, senseless murder.
In the early morning hours, the Palestinians negotiated transport to Egypt with their captives and were taken to an airfield. After the west Germans botched a rescue attempt, the Palestinians murdered all the remaining Israelis.
At 3:24 a.m., September 6, Munich time, ABC sportscaster Jim McKay, his voice shaking with emotion, announced: “The worst words I ever heard in my ear…two were killed in their rooms yesterday; 9 were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.”
Cohan, like so many other athletes was torn. Should he go on? It wasn’t just that he had worked so hard. He owed a debt.
At the 1936 “Hitler’s Games” in Berlin, which the dictator used to showcase his Aryan race, Jews were not welcome and there was a growing movement to boycott the event. Hitler’s pal, Avery Brundage, head of the IOC, had earned his friend of Hitler stripes after praising the Nazi regime at a Madison Square Garden rally in New York.
Brundage would brook no boycott. He was determined to send an American team, but he had to weed out the Jews. Cohan’s uncle and mentor, Hy Seldin, was eliminated from the Olympic fencing team by Brundag – using Seldin’s mild ear infection as an excuse to disqualify him.
Then, just hours before the 400 meter relay race, Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller, the only two Jews on the US track team, were kicked off, replaced by Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe. Although Owens, an African-American, wasn’t welcome, Brundage couldn’t keep him out because of Owens’ world fame. The athletes streamed in with Hitler staring them down.
While the games played out, the Germans were constructing the Sachsenhausen concentration camp – just 22 miles away.
So there it is: the IOC’s shocking pattern of Jewish insensitivity. In 1936, the IOC kicked Jews off the Olympic teams in Berlin. In 1972 in Munich, the IOC decided to let the band play on after the massacre of the Israeli athletes. And in 2012, the IOC refuses, once again, to hold a minute of silence to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the slaughter.
Instead, IOC president Jacques Rogge gratuitously countered that he would attend the Israeli Olympic Committee’s separate commemoration. Such a statement is the equivalent of, ‘Can’t make time for the funeral, folks, but we’ll lift a pint in memory at the local pub.’
There have been Olympic tributes, but never an official program at opening ceremony, one that would carry the imprimatur of the IOC saying, ‘We acknowledge, we care, we remember.’
In my home state of Connecticut, USA, the annual Holocaust commemoration is held in the august senate chambers of the state capitol building, as well as in synagogues. Thus, it is the state itself making a pledge to ‘never forget.’ And that is what is needed here: the official seal of the official governing body – not attendance at a side event.
The requests are international, from the US, Australia, Germany, Israel and Britain. By denying these requests, Rogge is carrying on the disgraceful tradition of the IOC. A tradition in which the lives and memories of Jewish athletes aren’t worth the perceived political cost.
There is speculation regarding Rogge’s refusal – mostly about how the IOC would deal with other grievances, such as Saudi Arabia’s exclusion of women or China’s human rights violations, or … fill in the blank.
We don’t know if that is Rogge’s reasoning. If so, it is both cowardly and false. The IOC knows that this is no political grievance, it is a request for a simple act of humanity. Eleven of their own were brutally slaughtered, a crime of unspeakable depravity, carried out on the world stage.
Men like Donald Cohan made their own stand. He won the bronze. And what’s more, when Brundage – at what would be his last Games – hung the medal around Cohan’s neck, uncle Hy Seldin stood nearby, with tears flowing.
Now, it is time for the IOC to take a stand, not just to honor the lost Israelis, but as a precedent for the future. A moment of silence – even better, the subsequent ringing of eleven bells – would tell the world that the Olympic Games stand for more than photo-finish records.
The writer is a former writer for Northeast Magazine, the Hartford Courant newspaper and the Jewish Ledger of CT. She is also the editor of a book by Dr. Herbert Ausubel, The Flower of God, which traces the history of two Jewish families back to King David, now on Amazon.
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