Focus on Issues 10th Anniversary of Massacre of Ii Israeli Athletes Recalled

The month of September is remembered in the world of sports as “Black September.” On Tuesday, September 5, 1972 (which corresponds to September 14 this year, according to the Hebrew calendar) PLO terrorists massacred II Israeli athletes and coaches in Munich during the Olympic Games.

The tragedy, which occurred just four days before the beginning of the Jewish new year of 5733, was one of the worst acts of savagery in the bloody history of PLO terrorism. The entire Western world was aghast at this atrocity. The huge Olympic stadium was the scene of grief and mourning the day after as 80,000 people from 120 nations gather to pay homage to the slain II. All flags were at half-mast.

Afterwards there was a pitiful attempt on the part of the International Olympic Committee, headed by Avery Brundage, to keep the 1972 Games going with sad encouragement from the Israel Olympic contingent which felt that despite their loss in players the Games had to continue and survive.

The feeling on the part of both the International Committee and the Israeli contingent was that a handful of terrorists would not be allowed to disrupt the “Olympic spirit.” The Israelis felt, furthermore, that stopping the Games would fulfill the objective of the terrorists in their massacre of the Israeli II.

Attempts were made earlier this month to get the various news wire services and TV networks to commemorate the tragedy. To their credit, the ABC-TV network did have Hugh Downs on his “20/20” program do a feature on Munich-10 years later. Here and there around the country newspapers recalled the incident and some publications, like the Philadelphia Daily News, really did on excellent job in recalling the event.

THE CARNAGE IN MUNICH

The story of what transpired is forgotten, or becomes hazy, in the course of time. It should be recalled that the initial attack on the Olympic Village where the Israelis were housed, occurred in the early hours of September 5.

The surprise attack was not entirely complete. Moshe Weinberg, a 33-year-old wrestling coach, apparently managed to hold the door to one of the apartments closed against the killers long enough for a substantial number of his fellow athletes to escape. Weinberg was killed and his body was thrown out of the apartment by the terrorists. A second Israeli, Joseph Romano, 33, a weight lifter was fatally wounded and died a few hours later.

The terrorists took nine Israelis as hostages and demanded a jet plane take them and the Israelis to an Arab capital and a guarantee of safe passage to an airport where the plane would be awaiting them. The killers also demanded a pledge from Israel that it would release some 200 Arab terrorists who were in prisons.

After 24 hours of fruitless negotiations between the terrorists and German authorities, the Germans agreed to the terrorists’ demands that they be to fly out of the country. What followed was what Mayor Georg Kronawitter of Munich was later to describe as “an awful carnage. I will never forget it as long as I live.” The German authorities conceived an ill-fated plan of action. They tried to ambush the terrorists at Furstenfeldbruck where a jet supplied by Lutfhansa was waiting.

According to the accounts by Kronawitter and the Bavarian Minister of Interior, Bruno Merk, who witnessed the events, a gunbattle broke out during which one pilot was wounded. Four of the five terrorists were killed or committed suicide and a fifth was gunned down by police. Before they died two of the terrorists killed their hostages. At the end of 24 hours, 17 people had died; the II Israeli athletes, one German policeman and the five terrorists.

THE II WHO WERE MURDERED

The II whose lives were snuffed out were, in addition to Weinberg and Romano, David Berger, 28, an American who had competed in the Maccabiah Games as a representative of the U.S. and who had settled in Israel in 1969 with the intention of representing the Jewish State in the Olympics; Andre Spitzer, 45, a weight lifting instructor; Yosef Guteureund, 41, the wrestling referee; Yacov Springer, 51, weight lifting instructor; Zeev Freedman, 28, a weight lifter; Eliezer Halfin, 28, a wrestler; Mark Slavin, 18, a wrestler who had “escaped” from the Soviet Union only three months prior to the Olympics; Amitzur Shapira, 32, the track coach; and Kehat Schorr, 53, the coach of Israel’s highly regarded team of marksmen.

AN IRONY OF HISTORY

Could the massacre have been forestalled if the German authorities did not act they way the did, or if then Israeli Premier Golda Meir had acceded to the demands of the terrorists, if the terrorists had accepted the offer of the Munich police chief to become a substitute hostage for the Israeli II, or if there had been tighter security at the Olympic village? History is filled with such ifs. Who was, in the last analysis, responsible for the tragedy?

It might be well to recall the words by Dr. Gustav Heinemann, who was the President of the Federal Republic at the time. Speaking at the memorial service he declared: “Those countries who do not put a stop to the criminal activities of the terrorists bear the real responsibility” for the massacre.

These words ought to be, must be, remembered. For 10 years later, almost to the day, the man who engineered the massacre, PLO chief Yasir Arafat, arrived at the Vatican and had a private audience with Pope John Paul II. This is an irony of history, but an irony that should give pause to those who speak of peace but confer with assassins.