Olympic Games – History of Sorts

Metallica and the Holocaust

When I say Metallica and the Holocaust, I really mean Lars Ulrich and the Holocaust, but since Lars is one of the founding members of one of my favourite bands, I thought it was apt to use the name of the band in the title.

This is one of those “What if?” stories. The life of Lars could have been completely different. Lars, like his father Torben and Grandfather Einer, was destined to become a professional tennis player. However, when he saw Deep Purple in concert in Copenhagen in 1973. he knew he wanted to become a musician. As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit, a Ludwig, from his grandmother around the age of 12 or 13. In 1980 he moved to the USA. In 1981 he placed an advert in a local classifieds newspaper looking for musicians to start a band with him. James Hetfield replied to the ad, and Metallica was formed, the rest is Rock N Roll history. However, it is the story of his Grandmother and Grandfather which links to the Holocaust.

Einer Ulrich was a Danish tennis legend. Between 1924-38 he played Davis Cup for Denmark in 28 ties, winning 39 of 74 matches. His 74 Davis Cup matches were a Danish record until it was broken by his son, Torben Ulrich, who eventually played in 101 matches. Einer competed in the singles event at the 1924 Summer Olympics, reaching the second round in which he lost to Dutchman Henk Timmer. With compatriot Erik Tegner, he competed in the men’s doubles event and reached the third round.

In 1926 he competed in Wimbledon where he reached the 4th round. He initially started as a footballer, playing with Akademisk Boldklub, Kjøbenhavns Boldklub, and Hellerup Idræts Klub. He later served as a football referee for 25 years.

Ulrich was on the board of directors of the Danish Lawn Tennis Federation from 1938-69, serving as chairman in the last five years of his life. His career was in advertising with his own company, Einer Ulrich Advertising, and later Ulrich and Parrilds Advertising, which they sold to American James Thompson.

After the Nazi occupation of Denmark in 1940 the family decided to stay in the country despite the Jewish origin of Ulrich’s then-wife Ulla The turning point was the year 1943 when they were informed of the Nazis’ intent to “purge” the Danish protectorate as well. This rumour was strengthened by the deportation of the Danish police in 1943. In October 1943, to prevent being arrested, Einer used his ties to the Swedish King King Gustav V, a recurring sparring and doubles tennis partner of his, to send his wife and two sons to Sweden in secret. His family along with a group of other Jewish refugees were transported on a fishing boat by smugglers across the Øresund strait when they were caught on the sea by the Germans. Shots were fired, the passengers jumped into the water and scattered. They were pulled aboard by the Nazis and taken into custody in Elsinore and then to a local camp. Einer was so well known that he went to the camp and convinced the Nazis to free his family. Six weeks later, they tried again and were successful. Einer joined them six weeks later, aided by Swedish Davis Cup tennis player Marc Wallenberg. After the war, they moved back to Denmark.

A Sewing Club reunion, many years later. From left to right: Thormod Larsen; Børge Rønne; a Sewing Club associate named Carl Palm, who was a Swedish police commissioner;
Ove Bruhn; and Erling Kiær.

The majority of the Danish Jews survived the Holocaust, thanks to the Danish government and also resistance groups like the ‘Elsinore Sewing Club’ a Danish resistance organization established in 1943 which covertly transported Danish Jews to safety during the Nazi occupation of Denmark. The town of Helsingør (known as Elsinore in English) was only two miles away from Sweden, across the Øresund, from the Swedish city of Helsingborg. This allowed the transport of refugees by local boats.

Finishing up with Lars Ulrich and his bandmates in action.

Sources

Saving as Many as They Could: The Elsinore Sewing Club

https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/2398

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Einer_Ulrich

https://olympics.com/en/athletes/einer-ulrich

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Ulrich

1936 Winter Olympics

The 1936 Olympic summer games are a well-documented event. However, the 1936 Winter Olympics was not commonly discussed, yet it was just as controversial and steeped in propaganda as the summer games. From February 6 to February 16, 1936, Germany hosted the Winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps. It was held six months before the Berlin Summer Olympics

The 1936 Winter Games were organized on behalf of the German League of the Reich for Physical Exercise (DRL) by Karl Ritter von Halt, who had been named president of the committee for the organization of the Fourth Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen by Reichssportführer Hans von Tschammer und Osten.

Yielding to international Olympic leaders’ insistence on “fair play,” German officials allowed Rudi Ball, who was half-Jewish, to compete on the nation’s ice hockey team. Hitler also ordered anti-Jewish signs temporarily removed from public view. Still, Nazi deceptions for propaganda purposes were not wholly successful. Western journalists observed and reported troop manoeuvres at Garmisch. As a result, the Nazi regime would minimize the military’s presence at the Summer Olympics.

28 nations sent athletes to compete in Germany. Australia, Bulgaria, Greece, Liechtenstein, Spain, and Turkey all made their Winter Olympic debut in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Yugoslavia all returned to the Games after having missed the 1932 Winter Olympics.

Rudi Ball initially did not qualify for selection in the German ice hockey team, due to his Jewish background. His good friend and teammate, Gustav Jaenecke, refused to play unless Ball was included. Ball also believed a deal could be struck to save his family in Germany if he returned to play in the games. The German selectors also realized that without Ball and Jaenecke the team would not stand a chance of winning. Another factor was that the Nazi party could not overlook the fact that Ball was without a doubt one of the leading athletes in his sport. With much controversy, Ball was included in the German team to play at the 1936 Olympic games. One report of the time proposed that Ball was playing against his will.[8] The deal for Ball’s family to leave Germany was also agreed upon. After Ball was injured, the Germans took 5th place in the Olympic tournament. Ball played four matches and scored two goals.

Ball followed his brother, Heinz, to South Africa in 1948. He died in Johannesburg in 1975.

Two other athletes who competed at the Winter Olympics ended up in concentration camps during World War 2. Polish skier Bronisław Czech, and
Norwegian ski jumper Birger Ruud.

Bronisław “Bronek” Czech was a Polish sportsman and artist. In 1934. He wrote a book about “Skiing and Ski Jumping Style”. In addition, he ran a sporting goods store in Zakopane. He also had musical and artistic talents, played violin and accordion, painted on paper and glass, carved wood and wrote poems. When war broke out in 1939, he joined the Polish resistance movement as a courier to Hungary. He was arrested by the German Gestapo in 1940 and was one of the first victims to be transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. During his imprisonment, he continued to paint landscapes of the Tatras from memory. He died in 1944 in the camp’s hospital ward.

Birger Ruud, with his brothers Sigmund and Asbjørn, dominated international jumping in the 1930s. At the Winter Olympics of 1936 at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany, 90,000 people watched Birger Ruud fly. Ninety thousand faces turned up towards him as the Norwegian added a second gold medal to the one he’d secured at Lake Placid four years earlier.

At the 1936 Olympic Winter Games, Ruud attempted an unusual double, competing in both Alpine and ski jumping events. The inaugural Alpine contest was the combined ski jumping and slalom. Ruud led the downhill race by 4.4 seconds, but when he missed a gate in the slalom, he was assigned a six-second penalty and ended up in fourth place. A week later, Ruud won the gold medal in the ski jump.

He was also part of a group of Norwegians holding their own clandestine events and competitions until in 1943 a Quisling sympathiser reported the skiers to the Gestapo and the three Ruud brothers were sent to the Grini concentration camp. Released after a year Ruud returned immediately to resistance activities, becoming close to one of its key leaders Ahlert Horn.

Amid preparations for the Games, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen town council passed an order to expel all Jews in its jurisdiction but decided to wait until after the Olympics to implement the decree. Anti-semitic signs and publications were removed from the region for the duration of the Games, as a concession to the International Olympic Committee.

It was the last year in which the Summer and Winter Games both took place in the same country (the cancelled 1940 Olympics would have been held in Japan, with Tokyo hosting the Summer Games and Sapporo hosting the Winter Games).

sources

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/beelden/?mode=gallery&view=horizontal&q=Olympische%20Winterspelen&rows=1&page=1

https://vhec.org/1936_olympics/the_winter_games.htm

https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/olympics/?content=winter_games&lang=en

The Amazing Story of Rudi Ball

https://www.polskieradio.pl/39/156/artykul/2320092,bronislaw-czech-tragiczny-koniec-polskiego-krola-nart

https://olympics.com/en/athletes/bronislaw-czech

https://olympics.com/en/athletes/birger-ruud

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-europe-news-the-life-of-birger-ruud-8025912/

The slightly more bizarre Olympics.

Art competitions were held as part of the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. Medals were awarded in five categories (architecture, literature, music, painting, and sculpture), for works inspired by sport-related themes.

The Irish artist Jack Butler Yeats(brother of W.B Yeats) won the silver medal for his painting the “Liffey swim”, as seen above. The gold medal was awarded to Luxembourg artist Jean Jacoby for his painting “”Corner”, “Départ”, and “Rugby”.In fact he also won the Gold medal in 1928, making him the only artist who won 2 medals at the Olympic games.

During the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games Zambia became the first country ever to change its name and flag between the opening and closing ceremonies of an Olympic Games. The country entered the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics as Northern Rhodesia, and left in the closing ceremony as Zambia on 24 October, the day independence was formally declared.

Thankfully, this bloody sport only appeared in the Olympics once, at the 1900 Olympic games in Paris. The competition consisted of shooting as many pigeons as possible in the allocated time. The winner killed 21 birds that day, with an estimated total of 300 fowl killed in the entire competition.

Tug of war was contested as a team event in the Summer Olympics at every Olympiad from 1900 to 1920. Originally the competition was entered by groups called clubs. A country could enter more than one club in the competition, making it possible for one country to earn multiple medals. This happened in 1904, when the United States won all three medals, and in 1908 when the podium was occupied by three British teams. Sweden was also among the top countries with two medals, one as a member of the mixed team.

Either the Olympic committee ran out of ideas, or desperately wanted to relive their glory days of screaming obscenities at kids in gym class. Either way, it was included from 1896 to 1932.

The 1900 Paris Olympics were probably the weirdest. At the 1900 Paris Games, the horse long jump featured as an event.

Even though the winning leap from Belgium’s Constant van Langendonck who was riding the Extra Dry was an impressive 6.10 meters, it didn’t have a patch on the humans taking the same leap of faith. It failed to impress and was axed from the events list afterwards.

In 1900, the Paris Olympics also included a swimming obstacle race. Just like a normal swimming race, except this one had three obstacles including pole climbing and boats to climb onto and swim under.

The event was held in the river Seine, so it was basically in seine(pardon the pun)

Some two dozen countries, mostly from Africa, boycotted the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal after the IOC refused to ban New Zealand from the Games. New Zealand’s national rugby team had toured South Africa, a country that had been banned from the Olympics since 1964 because of its apartheid policies. While the boycott did not succeed in banning New Zealand from the Games, it did have a significant financial and athletic effect on the Games. Most importantly, it brought worldwide attention to apartheid policies in South Africa. In fact, when the South African Springboks took their rugby tour in New Zealand in 1981, they were met with antiapartheid protests.

In 1908, the competition made its official debut in the London Olympics and it was also the last time it took place. The boats had to complete a 40-mile course around Southampton Water but it was a real challenge as the weather was bad and six out of the nine scheduled races were cancelled. The high winds made it difficult for the spectators to even see the action taking place.

sources

1964 – Last Day of Northern Rhodesia

https://www.thecoolist.com/strange-olympics-sports/

Top 10 Weirdest Olympic Sports Of All Time

https://www.britannica.com/list/7-significant-political-events-at-the-olympic-games

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The Billy Joel Connections

It was Billy Joel’s 74th birthday on 9 May, and I was thinking about writing a piece about his musical history, going back to the times when he joined a band called “Echoes,” at age 16 to the times when he joined the bands “The Hassles” and “Atilla.” Then I came across a story which connected Billy Joel with World War II, the Holocaust and a large German retail and travel company, and indirectly to 4 Olympic games—and I thought that would make a much more engaging story.

Billy Joel was born William Martin Joel on 9 May 1949 in the Bronx, New York, and grew up in Long Island. Billy’s father, Howard (born Helmut) Joel, was a classical pianist and businessman, born in Nuremberg, Germany, to a Jewish family. He was the son of merchant and manufacturer Karl Amson Joel.

Karl Amson Joel started a business in household linens in 1927. The business was so profitable that he, his wife and their young son, Helmut, moved to an affluent area of Nuremberg. As his business rose in prominence—the Nazis rose in their power. The Nazis put their sights on eliminating the Joels and all Jewish businesses.

After the rise to power of Nazism in 1933, Karl Amson Joel was increasingly discriminated against by the regional Nazi Party leaders, especially Julius Streicher, the founder and publisher of the virulently antisemitic newspaper Der Stürmer.r.

In May 1933, Der Stürmer ran a front-page article calling Karl a Yid and accusing him of underpaying and sexually harassing his workers. Billy Joel’s father, Helmut [aka Howard], was one of four Jews in his Nuremberg classroom directed to sit apart from their classmates.

Karl Amson Joel moved his company to Berlin in 1934, renting a factory in Wedding, and installing new packing machines in the stitching department. However, had to remain in Nuremberg. As persecution increased (e.g. deliveries had to be marked with a “J” for Jude [Jew]). Jewish firms became Aryanized (the forced expulsion of Jews from business life in Nazi Germany, Axis-aligned states, and their occupied territories. It entailed the transfer of Jewish property into Aryan hands), Joel was forced to sell his company in 1938 to Josef Neckermann.

For fear of further persecution, Karl Amson Joel moved to Switzerland in July 1938 and later to the United States via Cuba.

Neckermann made his fortune as the owner of one of Europe’s largest department stores. His business made him the director of a very successful mail-order company under the slogan Neckermann Macht’s Möglich (Neckermann makes it possible) and also a travel company.

Shortly after World War II, Neckermann was sentenced to one year in a military prison.

In 1949, Karl Amson Joel successfully sued Neckermann for compensation in a Nuremberg court. Eight years later, the parties settled, and the files were closed.

In 1957, Karl Amson Joel got a compensation of 2 million West German marks for his former company from Neckermann, who at that time ran the most successful German mail order selling company.

As I said earlier on in this blog there is also a connection to 4 Olympic games, albeit indirect. Josef Neckermann was also a German equestrian and Olympic champion. He was one of the richest private citizens to have ever competed at the Olympic Games, and he did quite well, winning six medals in the dressage. Neckermann’s Olympics medals were as follows: 1960 – individual bronze, 1964—team gold (both for the mixed German team), 1968—team gold and individual silver, 1972—team silver and individual bronze, all for West Germany.

Other members of Billy Joel’s family were killed during the Holocaust.

I could not finish this blog without at least including one of his many songs. This is my favourite Billy Joel song.

sources

https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/magazine/then-now/campus/outback.html

https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/stranger-no-more/

https://www.olympedia.org/athletes/12487

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The Other Side of WWII

World War II wasn’t only death and destruction, there were a few occasions where there was some reprieve. Sports remained very important during the war, to keep up the morale. The above picture is of Private Leonardo Rodriguez of Cartaro, Arizona, roping a calf during the American Red Cross rodeo and “Wild West” show staged in Foggia Stadium in Southern Italy, July 4, 5, and 6, 1944. The steers were furnished by Italian veterans of the last war. All participants in the events were soldiers of the Allied Fifth Army in Italy or Allied flyers based in Italy.

Canadian soldiers checking out their ice skates

Dutch KNIL (Royal Dutch Indies Army) playing volleyball in Australia on a military base

Until September 1944, most sports were still allowed in the Netherlands by the occupying Nazis

A race between two eight rowing teams on the Amstel River in Amsterdam, May 1941

Fanny Blankers-Koen was a Dutch track and field athlete best known for winning four gold medals at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She competed there as a 30-year-old mother of two, earning the nickname “the flying housewife,” and was the most successful athlete at the event.

During the war, domestic competition in sports continued in German-occupied Holland, and Blankers-Koen set six new world records between 1942 and 1944.

Fanny Blankers-Koen is pictured below in 1943 and surrounded by her admirers

Allowing sports to continue was also a tool of propaganda, of course.

source

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/en/imagebank/detail/e7a2f0ee-025a-11e7-904b-d89d6717b464/media/3552e96c-2148-dbfd-115d-29894cf42095?mode=detail&view=horizontal&q=sport&rows=1&page=36

https://beeldbankwo2.nl/nl/

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1921 Women’s Olympiad

Today 100 years ago, the world’s first international sporting event for women took place in Monaco. The 1921 Women’s Olympiad was held in Monte Carlo from 24 to 31 March, 1921 . It featured competitors from just five nations: France, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, and Norway.

The games were organized by Alice Milliat and Camille Blanc, director of the “International Sporting Club de Monaco” as a response to the IOC decision not to include women’s events in the 1924 Olympic Games.

There were 10 events running (60 meters, 250 meters, 800 meters 4 x 75 meters relay, 4 x 175 meters relay and hurdling 65 meters), high jump, long jump, javelin and shot put The tournament also held exhibition events in basketball, gymnastics, pushball , rhythmic gymnastics and standing long jump.

Leading competitors in this Olympiad ese games included Mary Lines (1893-1978) of the United Kingdom and Violette Morris (1893-1944) of France. Mary Lines won gold in several athletics events including the 60m, which she ran in 8.2 seconds. She died in 1978 in a traffic accident, aged 85. She was rushing to post her Christmas mail and ran in front of a van.

Violette Morris had a slogan ” Anything a man can do, Violette can do!” well she certainly proved that throughout her life, but not always in a positive way .

She excelled in those sports that require strength and power such as shot put and javelin.However those weren’t the only sports she was involved in.

She partook in football,water polo ,road bicycle racing, motorcycle racing, airplane racing, horseback riding, tennis, archery, diving, swimming,weightlifting, and Greco-Roman wrestling,boxing and car racing.

She loved car racing so much that she had her breasts removed to fit better in the car.

In 1937 she was acquitted for shooting a man dead in self-defence.

Her lifestyle was of no shame to her. She lived as a man and made no secret of the fact that her lovers were women. This was considered really scandalous behaviour in 1920’s France. For this She was later banned from competing.

One of her biggest admirers was Adolf Hitler. In 1935 she was approached an recruited by by the Sicherheitsdienst. On the personal behest she was invited to attend the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Morris was later accused of being a Nazi collaborator. On 26 April 1944 she was ambushed on a country road by the French Resistance and machine-gunned to death.

As for the 1921 Women’s Olympiad it was a great success and an important step for Women’s sports. The 1922 Women’s Olympiad and 1923 Women’s Olympiad were held at the same Monaco venue. The 1922 Olympiad often gets confused with the 1922 Women’s World Games, which were held in Paris.

sources

https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-1921-women-s-olympiad-one-hundred-years-of-women-s-international-sport

The weird case of Violette Morris

The Olympic games how they were meant to be.

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After the uncertainty of not knowing if the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics would go ahead in 2021, we finally got the news that they would be going ahead but without spectators. Covid 19 didn’t only cause havoc in normal life it disrupted some of the biggest sporting events also.

The ancient Olympic games did start off as a religious festival and a good excuse for Greeks from all over the Mediterranean basin to gather for a riotous barbeque. On the middle day of the festival a vast number of cows were slaughtered in honour of Zeus, King of the Greek Gods – once he had been given a small taste, the rest was for the people.

Aristotle reckoned the date of the first Olympics to be 776 BC, a date largely accepted by most, though not all, subsequent ancient historians.It is still the traditionally given date and archaeological finds confirm, approximately, the Olympics starting at or soon after this time.

For the first 250-plus years all the action took place in the sanctuary of Olympia, situated in the north-western Peloponnese. Pock-marked by olive trees, from which the victory wreaths were cut, and featuring an altar to Zeus, it was a hugely scared spot.

The Ancient Olympic Games would last a full five days by the fifth century BC and saw jumping, running and throwing events. Additionally there were boxing, wrestling, pankration and chariot racing. At least 40,000 spectators would have filled ked the stadium each day at the height of the Games’ popularity, in the second century AD, with many more setting up stalls selling their wares outside.

If the modern games would have followed the same rules as the ancient games, it would have been a completely different event, I would dare to argue, perhaps an even more entertaining event.

All athletes competed naked
Wrestlers and pankration (a sort of mixed martial art which combined boxing and wrestling) competitors fought covered in oil
Corporal punishment awaited those guilty of a false start on the track
There were only two rules in the pankration – no biting and no gouging
Boxers were urged to avoid attacking the on-display male genitals
There were no points, no time limits and no weight classifications in the boxing
Athletes in the combat sports had to indicate their surrender by raising their index fingers – at times they died before they could do this
Boxers who could not be separated could opt for klimax, a system whereby one fighter was granted a free hit and then vice-versa – a toss of a coin decided who went first

For most of its history, Olympic events were performed in the nude. Greek Historian Pausanias says that the first naked runner was Orsippus, winner of the stadion race in 720 BC, who simply lost his garment on purpose because running without it was easier.

There are no records of women competitors during the ancient games. Ig there were they probably would have looked something like these athletes.

I am looking forward to the 2020/2021 Tokyo Games and I hope they will be a great success, because despite all the recent scandals it remains a feat of human achievment

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Source

https://www.olympic.org/ancient-olympic-games

The weird case of Violette Morris

viole

Of all stories relating to spies and collaborators during WWII this most be one of the most intriguing ones.

When I first read about Violette Morris and saw the date she died,26 April 1944, I assumed she was killed for being a member of the French resistance. Why I thought that I don’t know.

Born in France on 18 April 1893. She was a French athlete who won two gold and one silver medals at the Women’s World Games in 1922 and the Women’s Olympiad in 1924.

violette

She excelled in those sports that require strength and power such as shot put and javelin.However those weren’t the only sports she was involved in.

She loved car racing so much that she had her breasts removed to fit better in the car.

car

She married Cyprien Edouard Joseph Gouraud on 22 August 1914 in Paris. They divorced in May 1923. She had served in World War I as a military nurse during the Battle of the Somme and a courier during the Battle of Verdun.

Although she had been married, she was attracted to women.

Her motto was “Anything A Man Can Do, Violette Can Do, Too”

Her lifestyle was of no shame to her. She lived as a man and made no secret of the fact that her lovers were women. This was considered really scandalous behaviour in 1920’s France.

In 1928, she was refused license renewal by the Fédération française sportive féminine and as a result was not allowed to compete in the 1928 Olympic Games.

Despite her being openly gay she had a big fan in Adolf Hitler. This one of the anomalies in the Nazi policies,according to the Nazi doctrine women could not be gay.

In 1935 she was approached an recruited by by the Sicherheitsdienst. On the personal behest she was invited to attend the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

1936

She provided the Nazi regime in Germany with partial plans of the Maginot Line, detailed plans of strategic points within the city of Paris, and schematics of the French army’s main tank, the Somua S35. Her information was vital to the German invasion of Paris in 1940.

After the Nazi invasion, Morris remained close to the Germans and started working for the French Gestapo, the Carlingue. She had the nickname, ‘The Hyena of the Gestapo,’ because apparently she got a lot of sadistic pleasure by torturing people and extracting information.

On 26 April 1944, when she went for a drive in her Citroën Traction Avant car with two friends and their two children for a spin on a country road.

citoen

Her engine sputtered and the car came to a halt. Earlier tha day, the engine had been tampered with by the French Resistance Maquis Surcouf group. Members of the group then emerged from a hiding spot and opened fired on the car. Although Morris was the target, all five people in the car were killed. Morris’ body, riddled with bullets.

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The killing of Athletes

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It is often said that the death of a million is a statistic but the death of one is a tragedy, and unfortunately this is true. People just become desensitized when they see the pictures of a great number of corpses. It is just human nature, a defense mechanism because the brain just can’t fathom the horror.

However people do get emotionally touched when the stories are personalized and especially when they are able to identify or associate themselves to that story. I was going to do a blog on the Palmiry massacre.

The Palmiry massacre was a series of mass executions carried out by Nazis , during the occupation of Poland , near the village of Palmiry in the Kampinos Forest, located northwest of Warsaw. The best documented of these massacres took place on 20–21 June 1940, wherein 358 members of the Polish political, cultural and social elite were murdered in a single operation.

However I decided to focus on just 2 victims, athletes, and not just any athletes but Olympic medal winning athletes.

Tomasz Stankiewicz

Tomasz_Stankiewicz_(cyclist,_-1924) (1)

I would nearly say this is a double tragedy because so little is known or written about Tomasz. He was a Polish track cyclist who represented his country in the 1924 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

As a as member of the Polish team he won a silver medal in the team pursuit event.

tHOMAS

As so many other he became involved in underground activities at the beginning of the German occupation of Poland

One day he accidentally , fell into a trap prepared by the Germans. Unfortunately, he was carrying illegally printed underground newspapers. He was arrested and was sent to Pawiak prison in Warsaw

prison

From there, he was deported to Palmiry on 20 or 21 June 1940 and executed.

Janusz Kusociński.

Janusz

Born in Warsaw into the family of a railroad worker, Janusz Kusociński, or Kusy as he was nicknamed. As a schoolboy he was more interested in playing football, and he played for several clubs in Warsaw. He turned to athletics in 1928 after joining the sport club “Sarmata”. His coach at the club was the famous Estonian, decathlete Aleksander Klumberg.

In his first competition at the Polish National Championships, Kusociński surprisingly won the 5000 m and cross country titles.

During the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 1932 he won the Gold medal in the 10 000 m with a time of 30:11.4.

race

He volunteered for the Polish army when Poland was invaded by the Germans and was wounded twice. He worked as a waiter during the German occupation, but was also a member of the Polish resistance. Janusz was arrested by the Gestapo on 26 March 1940 and imprisoned in the Mokotów prison. He was also executed during the June 20/21 executions.

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The 1940 Summer Olympic games, the games that never happened! Or did they?

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I have mentioned this before in other blogs that the IOC(International Olympic Committee) has very little to do with sports but more with politics.

But I have to admit they made the right decision on the 1940 Summer Olympics, although they didn’t really have much choice in the matter.

The 1940 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XII Olympiad, were originally scheduled to be held from September 21 to October 6, 1940, in Tokyo, Japan. They were rescheduled for Helsinki, Finland.

olympic-poster-hel_2046089i

In 1936, Tokyo was chosen in a surprise move, making it the first non-Western city to win an Olympic bid.

Japan pulled out of hosting the Games in July 1938. The IOC then awarded the Games to Helsinki, Finland, the city that had been the runner-up in the original bidding process. When the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out on July 7, 1937, Japan decided a year after the outbreak after the war to focus more on military matters then sporting events, therefore it withdrew from hosting the Games of the XII Olympiad.

The IOC then awarded the Games to Helsinki, Finland, the city that had been the runner-up in the original bidding process. To be held from July 20 to August 4, 1940, The Games were then canceled altogether after the breakout of WWII in 1939.

The 1944 Olympics which had been awarded to London was also cancelled, it wasn’t until 1948 before the Olympic games resumed. London who lost out in 1944 got to host the games in 1948.

However. while the official Olympic Games were canceled, a different kind of Olympics was held in 1940. Prisoners of war in a camp in Langwasser, Germany, held their own DIY Olympic Games in August 1940. The event was called the International Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games. The Olympic flag and banners for Belgium, France, Great Britain, Norway, Poland and the Netherlands were drawn on a prisoner’s shirt using crayons. The 1980 movie Olimpiada ’40 recounts this story.

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Although the International Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games of 1940 were kept in complete secrecy, in 1944 in another POW camp,Woldenberg another International Prisoner-of-War Olympic Games was held under the name of the Woldenberg Olympics.

The guards of Woldenberg allowed the ’44 event to proceed with the provision that no fencing, archery, javelin, or pole-vaulting competitions took place.

Roughly 369 of the 7000 prisoners participated. Most of the men competed in multiple contests, which ranged from handball and basketball to chess. Boxing was included—but owing to the fragile state of prisoners, broken bones resulted in a premature end to the combat.

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Tomasz Stankiewicz

Janusz Kusociński.

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