Repeat from September, 2016.
WeeWeed just posted an article from the NYT, describing how two of the widows of men who were killed in Munich, as members of the Israeli Olympic team, after twenty years, finally see the photos taken at the scene, and learn about – and view – the torture and death of their husbands, Yossef Romano and Andre Spitzer. Read HERE
The following is a post that I did a while ago. It seems fitting that we discuss what happened again now.
Seen on Facebook:
On September 5, 1972, the Munich Olympics were transformed into a site of terror. The team of Israeli Athletes were taken hostage by Palestinian terrorists, and 11 men lost their lives.
The games were held a short distance from the Dachau Concentration Camp where millions of innocent men, women and children were murdered by the Nazis because they were Jewish. The Israeli Olympians toured the Dachau Concentration Camp as part of their Olympic schedule and news anchor Jim Mckay took note of that visit and commented that the presence of an Israeli team at an Olympics in Germany shows that “the world has come a long way.. since the Holocaust…”
But has it?
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Terrorism increasingly threatens the lives of people of all faiths, nationalities and backgrounds around the world.
It is incumbent upon us to protect the memory of these Jewish men and the message their murder sends to the world: that we cannot afford to stay silent or inactive in the face of those who seek to control and destroy their fellow men through hatred, fear and violence.
Terrorism is an issue that must transcend politics, religion, nationality or ideology – it touches the very essence of our common humanity.
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Terrorism is wrong – not some of the time – but all of the time – not in some places – but in all places. Terrorists and their sponsors are savage criminals who must be condemned and punished – not legitimized and rewarded.
This video is the story of the massacre at the 1972 Olympics in Munich:
A Palestinian terrorist group called “Black September” attacked the dorm rooms of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games, killing two in the initial attack and taking nine hostage. All nine hostages were later killed. Three Black September terrorists who took part in the Munich Massacre were released by the West German government hijacked and threatened destruction of an airliner in October 1972.
Stella's Place 
I remember it well. I had just made my decision to enlist in the Air Force. I was glued to the TV as this evil played out. I can still see the video in my head of the terrorists on the balcony of the hotel. I made up my mind, that this was the evil we must fight. It disgusts me that we have now welcomed it to our shores. We will pay a heavy price.
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Cool, one of the best times to gave enlisted though pay and allowances still sucked and were about to get worse during inflation. I can remember the collective sigh of relief when Reagan gave us that series of pay raises and we could actually afford to pay our bills.
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Was a young mother in a small town in Calif. was just too mind boogling for me to handle. I do believe it was one of the first real terrorist attacks at an event like this.
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I remember it. Funny that I didn’t equate it with Muslims. I didn’t realize that Palestinians were Muslims.
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The Palestinians did great PR, they made it a ‘stolen statehood’ issue when it had been a Moslem versus Jew issue since, in modern times, WW I.
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Remember? It happened right out the back window a block or sobaway from my grandmother’s retirement building in Munich. I still have a collection of unused commemorative ’72 beer glasses from the Munich Olympics…a reminder of a whole mess o’ irony coming to roost.
Gave one glass a few werks ago to one of Czarina and my doctors whose daughter is going to Germany next summer to do a research paper on the camps. Neither knew of the irony of the camps coming home to that Olympic village in Munich.
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Thought the Mossad hunted down with impunity a couple of them. Then in Sweden, accidentally killed a couple of tourists.
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Yes, Operation Wrath of God. It was not just to find and kill the three surviving terrorists from the attack but to punish and dissuade Black September (BS) and the PLO from further anti-Israeli operations. Dozens of BS and PLO were killed in the Mideast and Europe for years but only one of the three surviving Munich terrorists was confirmed killed and that took years to do.
The Israelis killed PLO and BS people around the wirld for years while the BS and PLO killed Israelis around the wirld too, and it went on for years.
The Swedish screwup was when bad intel pointed towards one of the three being in Lillehammer. Israelis killed him only to discover that they’d been misled and their target was an innocent Moroccan. Six Israeli agents were captured, tried and imprisoned but werecreleased a few years later and returned to Israel.
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Black September?
What is the significance of September to these people?
September 11 comes to mind.
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Black September was an enforeced coincidence. After the ’67 war Palestinians started leaving the territory Israel occupied and settling in Jordan. That didn’t last long before the ungrateful Palestinian refugees granted refuge in Jordan started calling for the overthrow of the Jordanian government. There was a war between the Palestinians and their Jordanian hosts that ended with the Palestinians getting kicked out, you guessed it, in September. In rememberance of their host’s reactions to their bad table manners they named their terrorist group Black September.
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Disclaimer: this could NEVER happen here.
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Those of us in college were in the throes of our re-indoctrination. All the Olympics meant to us was the Marc Spitz poster. We had no idea what all of this meant, no understanding of what Palestinians meant or any of the associated events that might have explained it. It was never discussed at school, and our parents sure never explained it. We had no idea why anyone would still hate Jewish people, let alone kill them. We had a hard enough time rationalizing the crap they were already teaching us at college.
The stuff we were taught at liberal arts colleges back then would curl your toes.
The mindset of these people – both sides – is still beyond comprehension. My heart goes out to those widows. Hopefully they have found a bit of peace.
Thank you both, Stella and WeeWeed, for this remembrance.
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The families left behind in such incidents have terrible decisions to make…research and find what really happened, look at photos, read descriptions…or choose to remember their loved ones as they were the last time they were seen. Most opt to view whatever is available, in an effort, perhaps, to relate as best they can to what their loved ones went through, to be–in a small way–there with them in a room full of terror and hate which had to have been palpable.
Certainly when such crimes against humanity are perpetuated even though they may not be huge on the body count scale, there is a presence surrounding it that is nothing short of true evil and a demonic presence which looks out from the eyes of the terrorists, and directed by Satan himself.
“The moment I saw the photos, it was very painful,” Ms. Romano said. “I remembered until that day Yossef as a young man with a big smile. I remembered his dimples until that moment.”
She hesitated. “At that moment, it erased the entire Yossi that I knew,” she said.
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I had not read this addendum to the story before or recall even hearing about it, though, of course, I absolutely remember the horror during that fateful Olympics. We didn’t think much about Islam in those days…we thought more in terms of Arabs against Jews and the age-old Semitic family enmity. And I knew of the support given to Hitler by the Grand Mufti and the terrible crimes against Armenians in the early 1900s by Islamic terrorists from the Ottoman Empire, and I was in 1972 a supporter of Israel and remain so.
Personalizing a terrible crime by introducing us to the individuals who were tortured and killed, brings with it not just anger much delayed but a realization that these things can never be paid for adequately…they can never be stamped “retribution no longer due.” Not for me, anyway.
I’m not a hater of people, really. We are all sinners in need of the Grace which God bestows upon us. But I despise with all my being that piece of rotting shit and filthy stain upon the earth called Islam. It’s pointless to hate individuals and I don’t have to hate those who terrorize and maim and rape and kill by common and grisly means. They will get their just reward in the next life. But while they remain in this one, may our military men and women fighting against terrorists remove them quickly to that next life and get their stink off this planet so that no good person ever has to smell that stench again.
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