“They're all gone.”
With those three chilling words from ABC sportscaster Jim McKay, the worst possible news was delivered on the fate of 11 Israeli hostages at the Munich Olympics. (More Sports News)
Five decades later, it's still hard to shake those images of a masked Palestinian t🗹errorist lurking on the balcony of the Olympic Village. It's still difficult to get one's head around just how senseless and needless it all was.
And then there are those left behind, to live a lifetime filled with hurt in their hearts and questions that 𝐆can never b꧃e answered about why it happened and what might have been.
Like the family of David Berger, a Jewish American weightlifter who joined the Israeli team in pursuit of his dreams and wound♓ up being assassinated.
He was only 28.
“We were six years apart," his sister, Barbara Berger, recalled by telephone Friday evening from her home in Maine. “But the year before he died, I spent the summer wi🍷th him ꦬin Israel. He was funny, and headstrong, and goal-oriented, and incredibly intelligent.”
When Barbara had a son, she named ꦿhim after her brothe🐲r.
“He looks just like David,” Barbara said, a hint of marvel in her voice. “He reminds m🍎e so much of my brother. Hi🙈s personality, his looks. I feel good about it. It feels like my brother does live on.”
The 50th anniversary ♑of the deadliest terror attack ever la🥀unched on the world of sports is Monday.
There will♛ be a commemoration in Munich, with the presidents of both German🅺y and Israel set to attend.
There also will be a cerem♏ony Tuesday at the Mandel Jewish Community Center in Cleveland, site of the David Berger National Memorial, a heart-wrenching steel tribute that depicts the five Olympic rings, each of them broken in half but pointing upward, toward a more pea𒆙ceful world.
Berger was a Cleveland native who went to high school in Shaker Hei𒊎ghts.
“I can say that David Berger is very ꦑmuch alive in our community,” said Traci Felder, chief development officer at the Cleveland center. “As a person, he was about dedication and commitment, not only to sports but to education.”
Felder p🎃ointed to Berger's lasting legacy through an education endowment set up by his mother a🦩nd father.
Over the past five decades, the tragic events in Munich have been remembered with documentaries and movies, with plaques and monuments, and finally, just last year, with a moment 𝔍of silence𒆙 at the Tokyo Games.
They also sparked a more locked-down world at our stadiums andꦉ arenas, with security costs now accounting for a massive chunk of the budget for any city that wishes to host the Summer or Winter Games.
Of course, there is no chance of totally shutting down those who would🎃 do harm to others — especially on the high-profile stage that sports provides — in🍌 pursuit of their perverted goals.
A bombing at the 2013 Bos❀ton Marathon♏ left three people dead. Three were killed in the 2010 assault on a bus carrying the Togo national soccer team to a major African tournament.
In 2009, terrorists opened fire on the Sri Lankan cricket team heading to a match in Pakistan, resulting in t♕he deaths of half-dozen police officers and two civilians, while six S🐬ri Lankan players were injured.
💝I witnesse✅d the aftermath of another horrific attack.
In 1996, while working in a media center adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park, a bomb went off in the epicenter of the Atlanta Summer Game🌺s. One person was killed by the blast; another died later from 🔯a heart attack.
It could have been much, much worse.
It was bad enough as it was.
“I felt the ground shake,” Desmond Edwards, an Atlanta schoolteacher who witnessed the blast, t𝐆old🀅 me as he fled the scene on that chaotic night. “There were rivers of blood.”
Sadly, in the 50 years since Munich, we still live in a world with rivers of blood and many of the same grievances that led up to t𝔍he Olympic massacre.
“I don't think anything good came out of it🍒, given the state of the world today,” Barbara Berger said. “One can hope, but I actually think things are wꦚorse.”
Then she utters the saddest possible words frꦬom someone who lost a loved one: “I would ꧑say he died in vain.”
Even more disheartening, recognition of the carnage a🐎nd the many mistakes that allowed it to happen moved at an💙 inexcusably slow pace among those in power.
It took 49 years for the Internation🃏al Olympic Committee to acknowledge Munich with something so simple as that brief moment of silence during Tokyo's opening ceremony.
Just this week, the families of those 11 Israeli victims finally reached a deal with Germany's government over a long-disputed compensatio༒n claim, averting a threatened boycott of Monday's ceremony.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, welcomed the long-overd𒅌ue agreement that reportedly is worth some $28 million.
“The agreement cannot heal all w🎉ounds. But it opens a door to each other,”🧸 the leaders said in a joint statement.
Then again, the pact came on the heels of Palestinian꧙ President Mahmoud Abbas refusing to condemn the 50-year-old Olympic massacre. He countered that he could point to “50 Holocausts”🌱 by Israel.
Amid the political🐈 grandstandiꦑng, we lose sight of the individual anguish on all sides.
The family that has an empty seat at their dinner table. The survivor who 🧔is wracked with guilt. The bystander who can never forget what he or she witnessed.
Fifty years ago, Barbara Berger was in Munich along with another sibling, Fred, to watc🌱h their brother compete. She remembers asking David to come stay with them after he was done, but he wanted to remain with his Israeli teammates. She also recalls the lackadaisical security that allowed them to visit David in the athletes village.
But Barbara refuses to get cꦅaught up in thꦛe what-ifs. She saw it eat at her parents for the rest of their lives.
“It's a total waste of emotion,” she said. “I have enough self-d🌳iscipline not to go there. There's no point.”
Fifty y♌ears later, there seems no point to any of𝐆 it.
Yet we carry on, d❀oing our best to keep their names alive.
David Berger.
Ze'ev Friedman.
Yossef Gutfreund.
Eliezer Halfin.
Yossef Romano.
Mark Slavin.
Amitzur Shapira.
Kehat Shorr.
Andre Spitzer.
Yakov Springer.
Moshe Weinberg.
Hopefull🍨y, 🃏their all-too-short lives will someday inspire us to be a better people, a better world.
There's still time.
