8 | SEPTEMBER 15 • 2022 

N

o one mentioned tor-
ture. As my group 
walked through 
Munich’s Olympic Park, we 
stopped at three memorials to 
the Israeli athletes 
murdered by ter-
rorists during the 
1972 games. We 
were told that they 
died. Our guide 
never mentioned 
that some were 
tortured. 
In 2015, an article in the New 
York Times revealed that victims’ 
family members were shown 
documentation that indicated 
their loved ones had been tor-
tured as well as murdered at the 
hands of the Palestinian terrorist 
group Black September. Perhaps 
our guide, being German, didn’t 
say anything because the claims 
of torture are still contentious in 
Germany. Perhaps it was a detail 
she did not know. Fifty years after 
the 1972 massacre, her silence fits 
the general narrative. 
Munich is a city that, unlike 
Berlin, does not seem keen to 
place plaques, memorials or 
markers to highlight the lost Jews 
in its history. While touring near 
Marienplatz central square with 
the Germany Close Up program, 
our tour guide stopped to tell 

us that we were standing where 
Munich’s main synagogue once 
stood. She had to tell us because 
there was no indication, no 
visible record that the center of 
Munich Jewish life once exist-
ed. The stumbling stones, brass 
plates laid into the pavement near 
the last residence of Nazi victims, 
so present in Berlin, are currently 
banned in Munich. 
Why are there three memorials 
to the murdered Israeli athletes in 
Munich’s Olympic Park? Because 
it took so long to get things right. 
One, a plaque outside the apart-
ment where the Israeli athletes 
once stayed, lists their names. 
Another, a sculpture by artist 
Fritz Koenig, constructed at the 
intersection between the Park’s 
arenas and housing, again, only 
lists the names of those who 
were killed. The last memorial 
wasn’t opened until 2017. It was 
put together in conjunction with 
the families of the victims. The 
memorial tells the story of the 
massacre on a loop on a video 
screen and features the history 
of the athletes, coaches and offi-
cials who were lost, not just their 
names. The massacre, at this 
latest memorial, is at last given 
context. 
The only silence anyone asked 
for was at the Olympics them-

selves. Not until 2021, in Tokyo, 
was an official moment taken 
during the Opening Ceremony 
to honor the 11 victims of the 
1972 Olympics. But the silence 
of omission, which has largely 
surrounded the massacre for 50 
years, was still visible when I vis-
ited Munich’s Olympic Park. 
The park, unlike many 
Olympic arenas and villages, 
once the games are complete, is 
still standing. The venues are still 
used and were hosting the 2022 
European Championships when I 
visited in August. Munich should 
be commended for integrating 
the massive scale of its Olympic 
construction into the life of 
its city. As an Olympics fan, I 
couldn’t help smiling at the pic-
tograms, designed by Otl Aicher, 
that were used to represent the 
different sports without the need 
for any translation. But I was 
more disconcerted than excited, 
very aware of what our tour was 
there to see. 
The Munich Olympic Village, 
once home to international ath-
letes, is now home to families 
and students, the apartments 
turned into full-time residences 
for Munich’s population. The 
modern utilization of the apart-
ments includes the suite where 
the Israeli team once stayed, cur-
rently used by a research associa-
tion. Even if no one was tortured 
there, two men did die in the 

Olympic Village: wrestling coach 
Moshe Weinberg and weightlifter 
Yossef Romano. Why anyone 
would want to live or work in 
such a space is something I don’t 
understand. 
While Munich’s government 
does not want stumbling stones, 
and the latest memorial instal-
lation came to be only after a 
long-fought battle by the families 
of the victims, it seems everyone 
in Munich wanted to speak at the 
commemoration of the attack. 
Only the families of the victims 
would have been absent if, after 
50 years, a compensation agree-
ment had not been reached at the 
very last minute. 
Munich is known for its 
Oktoberfest celebration. Pavilions 
are already under construction. 
It is a city far more interested 
in collective celebration than in 
collective grief. But, perhaps, 
it needs to do a better job at 
acknowledging both. Like the 
three memorials that exist in the 
Olympic Park, Munich does have 
a history of making an effort. 
Try, try, try again. Fifty years on, 
Munich needs to keep trying. 
Memory and monuments are 
imperfect, but like the athletes of 
the Olympic Games, continuing 
to take part in the exercise mat-
ters. 

Jessie Atkin is a Washington, D.C., 

based writer and social media 

manager. 

MATTHIAS SCHRADER/AP

A memorial plaque for the 11 athletes from Israel and one German police 
officer were killed in a terrorist attack during the Olympic Games 1972, 
stands at the former accommodation of the Israeli team in the Olympic 
village in Munich, Germany, Aug. 27, 2022.

opinion
In Munich, Five Decades of Evading Grief

Jessie Atkin
Times of 
Israel

CC DR. AVISHAI TEICHER VIA WIKIMEDIA

Kolehmainenweg Memorial to the 11 Israeli athletes and one German 
policeman killed in the hostage-taking in Munich in 1972 by Fritz 
Koenig, 1995.

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