CLOSE-UP

The Munich
Massacre

Fifteen years later, the
memories are still vivid
for the Olympic athletes,
officials and newsmen
who were there when
Arab terrorists struck at
the Games

JEFF SEIDEL

Special to The Jewish News

Deadly image: His face covered with a ski mask, an Arab terrorist peers over a balcony in Munich's Olympic
Village during the siege.

hile David Marc
Berger was competing for Israel as a
weightlifter at the 1972 Munich Olympics,
death was the last thing on his family's
mind.
"We had talked with him a few days
before," said Dr. Benjamin Berger of his
son, who had moved to Israel from Shaker
Heights, Ohio two years before. "Nobody
suspected anything, we didn't give it a
thought. When he was finished with the
Olympic Games, he was scheduled to go in-
to the Army and that's what we were wor-
ried about."
There seemed to be little to worry about_
at the beginning of the Munich Olympics.
The Germans, trying to erase the memories
of the horrors of earlier years, sought to
'create a pleasant atmosphere and many
Germans referred to the Games as a

24

FRIDAY, SEPT. 4, 1987

Jungenfestspiel, a festival of the young.

All went well until the 11th day of the
Games, September 5, when tragedy struck
in the form of Arab terrorism shedding
Jewish blood.
The events of that day had a profound
effect on how future Olympic Games would
be conducted and how future terrorist acts
would be planned to seize media attention.
In interviews with some of the key
witnesses — Olympic athletes, officials and
network newsmen — a portrait emerges of
their thoughts and feelings on that in-
famous day, September 5, 1972, a day
whose bitter memories are still vivid 15
years later.

While The Athletes Slept

Maryland Congressman rIbm McMillen
(D-4th District), a member of the U.S.

Olympic basketball team that year,
remembers his surprise waking up in the
morning and "hearing that terrorists had
stormed the village. That was a very poign-
ant experience." -
The drama at Munich had begun while
most of those in the Olympic Village slept.
Eight members of the terrorist group Black
September, some dressed as athletes in jog-
ging clothes, quietly climbed a high fence
at about 4:20 a.m. and sneaked into the
Olympic Village. They then walked about
50 meters to 31 Connallystrasse, a
24-apartment building where the Israeli
delegation was housed in several duplexes.
The terrorists quietly made their way
to apartment No.1, which housed seven of
the Israelis. Yossef Gutfreund, a wrestling
referee, heard a noise and went to the door.
As it opened, Gutfreund saw the terrorists.