Munich massacre victims no longer ‘just names’

Memorial brings relatives another step closer to peace

M U N I C H • The grey space is carved directly into a grassy hillside, evoking an open wound.

In this way, the Munich 1972 Massacre Memorial, set to open on Wednesday, is emblematic of the pain that has endured for many since that year’s Olympic Games, when 11 members of the Israeli team and one German police officer were killed by members of the Palestinian group Black September.

Relatives of the victims said the memorial would bring them yet another step closer to peace.

“There are no happier people, no more satisfied people, than us,” said Ankie Spitzer, whose husband, Andre, a fencing coach, was among those killed at the Munich Games. “It took 45 years, but like I tell my kids, if you have a dream, pursue it, if you feel that it is just.”

Satisfaction has been a long time coming. The healing process? That still feels incomplete.

Family members of the victims — organized by Spitzer and Ilana Romano, the widow of weightlifter Yossef Romano — spent decades asking the International Olympic Committee for a formal acknowledgment of the massacre at the games.

Last year, at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, one finally took place, with a ceremony and the installation of a monument in the Rio Olympic Village.

But Spitzer and the other families had also urged the Bavarian government for years to erect a comprehensive memorial and museum at the Olympic Park, where the Israeli team members were initially taken hostage. Two team members were killed there, and the rest, as well as the German policeman, died during a chaotic rescue attempt at a nearby airbase.

Until now, a sculpture and plaque have been the two primary memorials in the Olympic Park. But for decades the memorial request was largely ignored, until more-sympathetic ears arrived in the leadership of the Olympic committee and the local government in recent years.

“It is late,” said Ludwig Spaenle, the Bavarian minister of culture, whose office led the project. “But it is not too late.”

The new memorial rests unassumingly along a quiet walking path in Munich’s Olympic Park. Visitors to the site descend a short set of steps to enter the main space, which has the effect of stepping into a sanctuary. The exhibition area, which measures about 1,700 square feet, seems almost like a cave, resting under a thick mound of grass and blending into a backdrop of linden trees.