Paris pauses to remember Munich and the Olympics’ darkest day, and condemn anti-Zionism

In a small courtyard in Paris, within a tightly guarded compound sealed off from the rest of the city, the Games paused to remember what International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach calls the darkest day in Olympic history, the murder of 11 Israeli athletes and coaches in Munich by Palestinian terrorists.

It is a commemoration that, in one form or another, has taken place during every Olympics since 1972, when heavily armed members of Black September, a militant offshoot of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, scaled the walls of the Olympic village and forced their way into the dorm rooms of the Israeli team.

Ankie Spitzer, widow of Munich victim Andre Spitzer, embraces Israel’s gold medal-winning windsurfer Tom Reuveni.Credit: AP

This year, it has additional resonance for a country mourning the atrocities of October 7 and an Israeli team that, due to the risk of further attacks by terrorist groups, is competing at these Games under 24-hour guard, while Israeli supporters have been advised not to draw attention to their nationality while in Paris.

“What to say, as we are asking our delegation and our supporters in Israel to participate in the peaceful Games – lower their heads and be discreet in the city of Paris just because they are Jews?” asked Israel’s ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka. “Should we tell them that they don’t deserve to be saluted because they are Israelis?”

Anne Hidalgo, Paris’s socialist mayor, offered a straight answer. Referencing France’s own dark history, when the Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis to send more than 70,000 Jews to their deaths in concentration camps, she told the gathering of Israeli officials, athletes and local Jewish community leaders that “you cannot sidestep that history”.

“We know what antisemitism is and we know what anti-Zionism is,” she said.

The memorial ceremony for the 11 Israeli victims of the Munich massacre, at the Israeli embassy in Paris.Credit: Eddie Jim

“We know today that one of the new faces of antisemitism is anti-Zionism and the desire to refuse the existence of the state of Israel. We are committed to make sure that antisemitism and anti-Zionism are reduced and pushed back.”

The direct link drawn by Hidalgo – whose social and environmental politics are otherwise aligned with the Australian Greens – between anti-Zionism and the broader hatred of Jews, continues her pattern of plain speaking throughout these Games.

This week, in an extraordinary interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, she took aim at the “reactionary far-right world”, which she blames for peddling hateful disinformation in France in the lead-up to the Olympics. “F--- the reactionaries, f--- this far right, f--- all those who would lock us into the war of everyone against everyone!” she said.

The connection between the Munich massacre 52 years ago and the October 7 attack, when Hamas killed 1200 people in southern Israel, was also drawn by the widows of two Israeli team members from 1972.

This photo of a Black September terrorist became an iconic image of the Munich Olympics.Credit: Russell McPhedran

Ilana Romano, whose weightlifter husband Josef Romano was shot dead and his body mutilated after trying to disarm one of the terrorists when they entered the men’s dorms before dawn, said she shared the grief of families who lost loved ones on October 7. “We know the road ahead for you, what the road of grief is all about,” she said.

“I will never forget how painful and impossible it was to tell my three daughters – they were so small – that their athlete father had been murdered in a violent and cruel way. My way of coping with this catastrophe was to raise my head and carry on his legacy, his tradition and promise them we would never forget.”

Ankie Spitzer, whose murdered husband, Andre Spitzer, was a fencing coach, directed her comments to the current Israeli Olympic team. “Our athletes had to perform here in Paris under extreme pressure because of the security situation,” she said. “They had to deal with life threats, and in spite of this, they have won six medals and brought pride and a ray of light into the lives of our people.

“For us, the families of the 11 victims of the massacre of Munich ... they are the answers to the horrors of 1972, and their achievement to us is bigger than gold.”

‘For us, the families of the 11 victims of the massacre of Munich ... they are the answers to the horrors of 1972 and their achievement to us is bigger than gold.’

Ankie Spitzer, whose husband Andre Spitzer was murdered in Munich

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Munich had “opened wounds that never heal”. He pledged never to yield to terrorism or antisemitism, and called for the return of 115 hostages still being held by Hamas.

The Black September attack, in which terrorists initially murdered two Israeli team members and took another nine hostage, was broadcast to a global audience in the middle of the 1972 Games.

A black and white photograph of a terrorist wearing a ski mask on the balcony of the Israeli team dorm, taken by Sydney Morning Herald photographer Russell McPhedran, became the iconic image of a horrific episode that ended in a botched rescue attempt at a Munich airfield and the murder of all the hostages.

American ABC sportscaster Jim McKay announced the grim news during a live broadcast. “They’re all gone,” he said.

Ilana Romano (left), the widow of Israeli weightlifter Josef Romano, lights a candle with Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo.Credit: Eddie Jim

Israel’s prime minister at the time, Golda Meir, later authorised Operation Wrath of God to hunt down and assassinate the surviving terrorists.

The grotesque spectacle of Munich also brought international attention to the Palestinian cause. Two years after the terrorist attack, the United Nations General Assembly granted the PLO observer status.

A memorial ceremony in Paris was originally planned to be staged at the city’s town hall shortly before the opening ceremony, but was shifted to the Israeli embassy because of the restrictions at the time on public movements near the Hotel de Ville.

The commemoration ceremony ended with the lighting of 11 candles for the Israeli victims of Munich, with Bach and Spitzer lighting one together, followed by Hidalgo and Romano. Both widows paid tribute to Bach for his role in pushing the IOC to formally recognise Munich with a minute’s silence during Tokyo 2020.

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