Women Who Boycotted Hitler’s Olympics & what we've inherited from 1936

I love the Olympic Games! This year I've only been able to watch a curated selection of events, and the stories of the athletes are amazing as always, their challenges, the competition, the excellence in sport and, of course, the medals. So much to inspire us!
 
This summer in Paris, as has been true in other host cities in the past, there's a dark side to the sparkling events.
 
French authorities cleared out homeless encampments for months prior to the opening ceremonies, busing "undesirable people" out of the city center to the fringes of Paris. Authorities have been sharply criticized as thousands of migrants, squatters, sex workers and families down on their luck have ended up with no shelter.
 
A spokesman for the regional government denied the accusations pre-games "social cleansing" and said the government has relocated migrants from the city for years.
 
“We are taking care of them. We don’t really understand the criticism because we are very much determined to offer places for these people."
 
Hear the stories and see photos from Associated Press here . 
 
Or here from ABC News. (5-minute read)
 
Our modern games owe their grand themes, magnificent Olympic stadiums and even cost-overruns to the precedent set by Adolf Hitler's in 1936. The Berlin games were the first ever broadcast on television, and the first to feature the Olympic torch relay from Greece to the site of the games.

Nazis planned the torch-lighting and other pageantry in an all-out effort to host an Olympics that would out-shine all previous games. Hitler's grandiose plans for Germany world domination included taking over the Olympics forever.

In his desire to show the world the superiority of the Aryan race, he "cleaned-up" Berlin.

Police arrested nearly one-thousand Roma and Sinti people, interning them in a camp on the edge of the city near Berlin's sewage fields. The Gypsies were later deported to Auschwitz. 

Few stood up to Nazi propaganda portraying Germany as a tolerant and hospitable nation. The only country to boycott the 1936 games was the Soviet Union.​​​​​​​ But three young Jewish girls gave up their dreams to follow their consciences.​

Austrian champion swimmers Judith Deutsch, Ruth Langer and Lucie Goldner, 1936.

Judith Deutsch, (left in photo) Austria's top swimmer in the mid-1930s, knew of the persecution of Jews in Germany and she experienced antisemitism in her home country.

She and two other Austrian swimmers, Ruth Langer (middle in photo) and Lucie Goldner (right) trained at the Jewish swim club Hakoah in Vienna, Austria because they were barred from public pools, where signs read No entry for dogs and Jews.

Ruth Lager grew up in Vienna and took up swimming at age 11, hoping to excel at something her brother did not. At age 14, she broke the Austrian records for the 100-meter and 400-meter freestyles and won the Austrian championships at those distances.

Judith dominated Austrian swimming 1934-36. She was national champion in the 100-meter freestyle, 200-meter freestyle, and 400-meter freestyle, setting twelve national records in one year. In 1935, she won the country's highest athletic award Outstanding Austrian Athlete.

The three swimmers were selected for the Austrian Olympic Team, due to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Nazi Germany. The games sparked international debate about whether attending the Olympics endorsed Germany's white nationalistic policies and militaristic ambitions.

As the Berlin Olympics approached in 1936, Americans, too, debated whether to attend. The US Olympic Committee President, Avery Bundage traveled to Germany to investigate claims of Nazi discrimination against Jews. 

He reported such claims were exaggerated “and the unhindered continuance of the Olympic movement were more important than the German-Jewish situation.” 

Lord Melchett of Britain, president of the World Federation of Jewish Sports Clubs recommended Jewish athletes not participate. Not an obvious choice at the time, only a few athletes, Jewish or not, joined the boycott.    
 
Judith, Lucie and Ruth took a stand, saying, ''We do not boycott Olympia, but Berlin."
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​​​​​​​In an interview with Reuters, Ruth said, "It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. But being Jewish, it was unthinkable to compete in the Games in Nazi Germany, where my people were being persecuted.

​​​​​​​Ruth Langer originally held eight Austrian national swimming records. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Austrian authorities swiftly retaliated, banning the three swimmers from all national and international competition ''due to severe damage of Austrian sports'' and ''gross disrespect for the Olympic spirit.'' In addition, officials erased them from the Austrian record books.

Two years later, Germany annexed Austria and singled out Austrian Jews for even worse discrimination. Viennese athletes forced Ruth to clean the SS and SA barracks.  

Still a teenager, Ruth decided to enter a swim meet in Italy. Dying her brown hair blonde, she carried a forged baptismal certificate as proof she was Roman Catholic.
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The next year she escaped from Italy to England where, in 1939, she won the British long-distance swimming championship in the Thames. 

The other two women also escaped the Holocaust. Lucie Goldner, the Austrian backstroke champion, used her swimming connections to flee to London. After WWII, she eventually moved to Australia, where she continued swimming for another Jewish swim club. 
 
Judith emigrated to Palestine and became the Israeli national champion. She represented Hebrew University at the 1939 World University Games, winning a silver medal.

​​​​​​​Judith Deutsch Haspel, Israeli national champion swimmer.

In 1995, when the Austrian government apologized and reinstated the champions’ records, all three women declined to travel to the ceremony.
 
Judith wrote: "I am happy to accept your apologies and the withdrawal of sanctions against me...And in no way do I regret having done what I did sixty years ago."
 Decades later, before the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Ruth told Reuters: ''Whenever the Games come up again, I get a heartache. It's something that stays with you for the rest of your life.''

Sources
https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/olympics/?content=jewish_athletes_more
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1140536
https://apnews.com/article/olympics-2024-paris-migrant-camp-3ef2a08d8da1085148ed409dcb44d6f6
https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/migrants-homeless-people-cleared-paris-olympics-112279127
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/06/sports/ruth-langer-lawrence-77-who-boycotted-36-olympics.html
https://lilith.org/articles/swimmers-against-the-tide/
https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/olympics/?content=jewish_athletes_more
https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/olympics/?content=aftermath&lang=en