Israeli survivor of the 1972 Munich Olympics speaks in London
| By Jonny Paul | Updated: 29/May/2006 15:46 |
|
| ||||||||||||||||
Email to friend
Print this page
Bookmark this pageDan Alon, a member of the fencing team that travelled to Munich for the Games, spoke at Mill Hill Synagogue on last Wednesday about the fateful days in September 1972.
Eleven of the Israeli athletes were murdered after Palestinian terrorists from the Black September group broke into their compound in the Olympic village and took them hostage. Alon managed to escape before the terrorists realised he was there.
The talk was organised by the Brussels-based European Center for Jewish Students, as part of the Speakers Bureau series. Alon has spoken in Berlin, Copenhagen, Oslo and Dublin.
Beauty shattered
Alon, who was a 27-year-old member of the fencing team at his first Olympics, recalled how excited he was to make the trip. “I was in heaven,” he said. “It was the most beautiful time of my life.”
| Related Articles | ||||||
|
His family heard for the first time his story just a few months ago, 34 years later.
Alon told how he and his coach Andre Spitzer had been invited to train with the German fencing team and arrived a week before the rest of the Israeli delegation. The two friends were the same age and from the same fencing club. They toured Munich and visited Dachau concentration camp before the rest of the team arrived.
The speaker explained that on the night of the attack, the Israeli team had seen a production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ at a Munich theatre and had returned to the Olympic village around 11pm. At 4:30am Alon was asleep in his room, in the second of five rooms reserved for the Israeli squad, when he and his room-mate were awoken by the sound of machine gun fire.
The terrorists had captured his team-mates in the first room and in a bizarre twist of fate, had strangely passed Alon’s room and attacked the third room.
Faced with the choice of five empty rooms when he had arrived, Alon had insisted, for reasons he could not explain, on taking the second room. Spitzer had taken the first.
“I chose room two, it had nothing to do with me,” he said. Alon said this had saved his life and his survival was pure chance.
The occupants of the second room avoided capture, but were trapped. The only way out was to climb down from the balcony on second-floor but this would expose them to the terrorists guarding the room next door.
They talked about attacking the terrorists, but they had no idea how many they were. Instead, they decided to try the first-floor window. Alon remembers one of his team-mates hesitating as they were leaving wanting to wash and brush his teeth.
Knowing they risked being shot, they walked very quietly down to the first floor and one by one exited, sprinting toward German police officers and to safety.
For the following hours, the survivors waited for news of their team-mates. Later that night was the shootout between German police and the terrorists that resulted in the terrorists killing the Israeli hostages.
Never give in
Alon said he agreed with the Olympic Committee’s decision to continue the Games, “We can never give in to terrorism,” he said.
Despite his talent, Alon gave up fencing. He returned only once to the sport, age 46, at the urging of his students and won the Israeli championship again.
Today he is a managing director of a plastics company and is married to Adele, a South African he met while she was hitchhiking in Israel. They have three children, one of whom also fences. He returned to Munich only once, by coincidence it was September 5. He went to the Olympic Village, stood outside the building for 20 minutes and left.
Alon said he wants the world to know what happened in Munich. Now that he has begun talking, he says, the words come more easily each time.
“Whether from the movie or my own personal story, I whole-heartedly believe the world should know what happened, my survival was pure chance and it has given me the opportunity to tell the full story first-hand.”
Alon’s wife, Adele, says his willingness to relive his Munich experience astonishes her. “He has a phenomenal memory, he remembers everything!”