Do you remember what you were doing 35 years ago today? I sure do....my Mom and I were glued to the TV set (Dad was at work) watching the drama unfold in Munich. Little did I know how that day would literally hit home.
I used to have a pen pal in high school (didn't we all? It was the rage back then) who lived in a suburb of St. Louis. He wrote often about his cousin back in Israel, who was a weightlifter. This was just about the time the fitness craze was taking off for men...he often talked about how serious his cousin was about the sport, and I just figured it was another young man trying to get in shape to do his two years compulsory in the Israeli Army.
My Mom first noticed the resemblance in the photograph of one of the athletes and my pen pal. "Do you think they could be related?" she said. I responded that Friedman was a very common name and it "would be a million-to-one chance" if Ze'ev and my friend were related.
Then we all heard Jim McKay say the words that we hoped never would come:
"They're all gone."
30 days later, the number one came calling to our household.
My friend wrote me a letter and apologised for the delay, saying "all hell has broken loose" due to the fact his cousin lost his life at Furstenfeldbruck Airfield.
"MOM!"
She read the letter and we both couldn't make sense of what happened. 35 years to the day, I still can't.
In the ensuing months, he wrote about the backbiting between the German government, the broken promises of $2000 compensation (back then, that was a lot of money, now that's a mortgage payment), and the general frustration at trying to get info on what really went down that day. We both graduated, and generally lost touch over the years.
I often think about Ze'ev. What his life would have been like, had he lived. Would he have married, had kids who grew up to be athletes, would he have coached Olympic champions himself? We'll never know. By all accounts, he was an exceptional young man of 28. Started out in gymnastics, then grew too tall and muscular and switched to weightlifing. Taught both genres at the Wingate Institute near Tel Aviv. His best friend in the Olympic Village was David Berger, another young man that had shown such life promise.
I decided to wait to write this until I saw what the IOC was going to say to commemorate the 35th anniversary of this tragedy. Maybe I was naive but I really thought this time, the IOC would do the right thing and say *something.* Logging onto their website---I found nothing.
The only thing I found was on Google where a Moscow synagogue that had a commemoration service---and last night, ESPN Classic re-ran "One Day in September", the 1999 award-winning documentary about the murders. No, *slaughters*
For years, the families have been begging the IOC for some kind of recognition at the opening ceremonies of the Summer Games. Ankie Spitzer said it best: "You don't have to say they were 11 Jews or 11 Israeli's, just 11 athletes who came to Munich to compete in the spirit of the Olympics." 30 seconds is all they---and now myself---are asking for. It's not too much. But the families have been stonewalled for years. And that stonewalling comes from right inside the IOC.
At the IOC Session in Prague in 2003, I was on the receiving end of a very ugly comment by an IOC voting member in regards to this. I won't mention who or what was said---for now (because I think the families need to know before it's publicly released.) I consider myself pretty much shock proof. I went back to my hotel room at the Hilton, and cried my eyes out. My fiance was with me on that trip and was just as shocked as I was at what was said. It's a comment that has haunted me to this day.
On this 35th anniversary of one of the world's worst sport tragedies, it's time for President Rogge to step up to the plate and do the RIGHT thing---give the families the 30 seconds recognition---and the IOC will have taken a major step in resolving the issues of Munich for good.
But after today's Roaring Silence, I don't expect much. In fact, I expect what the IOC did today---which was nothing.
