THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, April 4, 1980 5
1936 Counter-Olympics a Casualty of the Spanish Civil War
(Continued from Page 1)
of sport — and Spain itself.
Several hundred of the
foreign athletes who had
come to Barcelona, many of
them Socialists and Com-
munists, joined the pitched
battles in the city's streets,a
nd became the nucleus of
the International Brigades.
The first British volunteer
to be killed in the civil war
was Felicia Browne, a
Communist painter who
had come to Barcelona for
the games.
:After troops at the Pad-
ralbes Barracks revolted
shortly before dawn on July
19, one of the first
Spaniards to rush to help
the foreign athletes lodged
in a big hotel in the Plaza de
Espana was a lanky Cata-
lan Communist named
Ramon Mercader. Four
years after performing this
errand of mercy, Ramon
Mercader assassinated
Leon Trotsky with an ice ax
in Mexico, evidently on Sta-
lin's orders.
- Mr. Agullo and others
have maintained that
Tito, today the ailing
president of Yugoslavia,
was involved in organiz-
ing the Barcelona games.
As a Comintern agent in-
stalled in a small Left
Bank hotel in Paris; Tito
by late 1936 had put to-
gether a "secret railway"
to dispatch East Euro-
pean volunteers to Spain.
"After the civil war
started," said Francesco
Parramon, an important
organizer of the Popular
Olympiad who now lives in
Paris, "I was with Tito in
Barcelona with the Interna-
tional Brigades. But I never
knew of his having any-
thing to do with the games."
The idea for an anti-
Fascist counter-Olympics
first arose in Barcelona,
which was filled with
anarchist and revolution-
ary sentiment, in May 1936.
The project was embraced
by Catalans of the upper
middle class as well as
working-class organiza-
tions, but one of the key fig-
ures who emerged among
local sports organizations
was a headstrong young
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Communist named Andres
Martin, secretary general of
the Workers Culture and
Sports Federation.
Mundo Deportivo, a Bar-
celona sports daily, called
him "the soul of the games"
that were about to be held,
and published with its ac-
count a photograph of a
—parade -in Moscow showing
"the glorious epoch of Stalin
marching before the tomb of
Lenin."
A satirical Catalan-
language weekly called
La Be Negre took a more
sardonic view of the
games observing that
"the great stadium of
Moscow was, until a little
while ago, the stadium of
Barcelona." It humor-
ously advised its Catalan
readers that by frying
smelly fish or turning on
butane gas they could over the telephone.
Communist Party and its
drive unwanted foreign
As the deadline for the numerous foreign Comin-
athletes lodged in private Barcelona games ap- tern advisers had infil-
homes into the streets.
proached, a Soviet tennis trated the Olympiad, but
The Catalan Generalitat, squad featuring "the lead- they did not control it.
the republican government ing players from the USSR"
One Communist-inspired
in Madrid and the French was said to be on the way, cartoon shows an Olympiad
Popular Front Government but at the 11th hour Moscow archer throwing a spear at a
of Leon Blum provided some pulled back from sending target labeled "f.a.i-xisme,_'
financial support for the teams. Josep Antonio a play on words in Catalan.
games, and Catalan news- Trabal, who in 1936 was The F.A.I. was the powerful
papers recorded that dele- president of the Spanish Iberian Anarchist Federa-
gations arrived from Athletic Federation, re- tion; it and fascism, or
France, Belgium, Britain, called that the Soviet Union "faixisme," were the
Canada, Switzerland, Swe- wanted "a more radical de- enemies of the Communists.
den, Greece, Norway, Hun- nomination given the-
gary, Czechoslovakia, Bul- games," and Mr. Parramon
garia, Poland, Algeria, recounted that at an organ-
OFFICIAL
AGENCY
Morocco and Palestine. On izational meeting in Paris
July ,16, nine American the head of the Soviet dele-
Christian Jewish Rela-
athletes arrived from Paris, gation insisted that their
tions on March 12 com-
and the Catalan daily La name be changed for Popu-
mended the CRA, the
AUTHORIZED
Publicitat recorded, "three lar Olympiad to the Olym-
Council of Churches
SALES
& REPAIRS
of them are of the black race pic Games of Barcelona, an
"and other concerned
— two men and a woman." overt challenge to the Be-
Christians for their
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The organizers of the
forthright criticism of Popular Olympiad prided rlin Games in early August.
Another
explanation
for
Rev. Ernest O'Neill's re-
themselves on welcoming the last-minute pullback is
cent anti-Semitic ser-
all races and creeds, in con- that the Soviet Union was
mons."
trast to Hitler's Olympics, unsettled by the turbulent
In a sermon' delivered at
Jewelers Ltd.
and there were translators atmosphere of Barcelona,
the Campus Church on
Creative Jewelers Diamonds —
who spoke Esperanto as where anarchists were by
Precious Stones —
March 16, O'Neill accused
well as a number of other far the strongest political
Precision Time Pieces
his critics of gross distortion
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"There were many Jews
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He claimed, "They took - mon, speaking by telephone
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the transcripts (of the ser-
from Paris, "and the music
Boy"
mons) and distorted some of for the hymm of the Olym-
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Florida, an admitted Treb-
linka SS 'guard, and the
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against alleged Nazi war
criminal Frank Walus of
Chicago._ The Walus case
will have to be retired.
With the Hazners case
decided, there is now no
active Nazi war criminal
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Minnesota Sermons
Called Anti-Semitic
(Continued from Page 1)
went into captivity for their
iniquity because they dealt
so treacherously with me
that I hid my face from them
and gave them into the
hands of their adver-
saries.' " According to
O'Neill, the Germans did
the damage but "God with-
drew his protecting sword."
On Feb. 14, the CRA is-
sued a statement signed by
all members which called
attention to O'Neill's ser-
mons of Jan. 13, 20 and 27.
"In our estimation these
sermons contain -numerous
overtly anti-Jewish state-
ments. The CRA deplores
and rejects these state-
ments and expresses its
willingness to meet with
various Christian bodies to
prepard an appropriate,
studied response to the
problem of anti-Semitic
elements in Christian
preaching."
A statement issued by
the Minnesota Interreli-
gious Committee on
EQMEGA1
George
Ohrenstein
,
.
" Your
modem Office,
U.S. Loses Nazi Case
ALBANY, N.Y. (JTA) —
The Office of Special Inves-
tigation (OSI) of the Justice
Department will appeal
Judge Anthony DeGaeto's
denial of its case against ac-
cused Nazi war criminal
Vilia Hazners.
The Justice Department
had asked De Gaeto, who is
an Immigration and
Naturalization Service
(INS) judge, to disqualify
himself from the case last
fall after a Jewish Tele-
graphic Agency report last
Aug. 24 revealed that two
years earlier he had re-
marked from the bench that
Jews always answer ques-
tions with questions. De-.
Gaeto did not choose this op-
tion.
DeGaeto ruled on Feb. 27
that INS could not deport
Hazners, a 74-year-old resi-
dent of Dresden, N.Y., be-
cause the government had
failed to prove that he had
concealed his participation
in the Holocaust.
The Hazners decision
followed three other Feb-
ruary setbacks in the
government's efforts to
denaturalize and deport
Nazi war criminals. In
Baltimore, the govern-
ment lost its deportation
case against Karlis De-
tlays, an admitted
member of the Latvian SS
who is a friend of Haz-
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