One Day in September

A morning like any other in Munich...

a city where tradition and modernity

exist happily side by side.

This summer our beautiful city

plays host...

to the 20th Olympic Games.

There, in the center of the future

Olympic site, is the Olympic tower.

Next to it,

the Olympic arena.

For many visitors,

Munich is a kind of German paradise.

We're sure that you'll agree.

Well, nobody could foresee

what later on happened.

From the wires

of the APand UPI.

Good afternoon.

This is Paul Mandel reporting.

Another deadline

has come and gone-

They had their hands tied in front of

them, their hands were tied like that.

Quite a frightening experience.

It wasn't any James Bond,;

it was the real thing.

- I just want to know what happened.

- The Games must go on.

The deadline appears, to us,

to be less than one minute away.

- Unbelievable.

- Spitz is a Jew, and it was feared...

an attempt might be made

to seize him.

Behind them was an Arab guerilla

with some kind of weapon in his hand.

All seems to be-

It was only a year and three months

that I was married to Andre Spitzer...

but it made such

an enormous impression on me...

sometimes it looks

like a lifetime.

I went fencing, and he happened

to be my fencing master.

I didn't know

he was from Israel at all.

He spoke Dutch,

but with a slight accent...

so I thought he maybe is from

Eastern Europe or something.

Ankie Spitzer

He had something about him

which really appealed to me.

He was very much

at peace with himself...

and also with

the people around him.

It was very attractive

to me because...

I was not so at peace

with everyone and everybody...

and certainly not with myself.

Being the person that he was, it was

hard not to fall in love with him.

I am a member

of a Palestinian family...

which fled our village in Galilee

from Zionist gangs in 1948.

As refugees, my family moved from

camp to camp...

before finally ending up

at the Chatila camp in Beirut.

When I was growing up, I thought

there was no future for us...

unless we returned to Palestine.

If we didn't return,

I would spend my whole life...

as a refugee deprived of

any kind of human rights.

So I joined

the liberation movement...

and was given a gun

and trained to use it.

For the first time in my life I felt

inspired, I felt truly Palestinian...

that I wasn't

just a wretched refugee...

but a revolutionary

fighting for a cause.

I joined the revolution

since 1967.

- Which revolution?

- The Palestinian revolution.

It has affected the course

of the rest of my life.

You have only to look at the way

I have to do this interview...

so many years later,

still in hiding.

We lived in the northern border

between Lebanon and Israel...

and it was way out in nowhere.

They decided to have

their fencing academy there.

He was going from town to town,

from village to village...

to try to teach the youngsters...

through the art of fencing,

to have respect for each other...

because fencing

is an aggressive sport.

You have a weapon in your hand.

You're going to attack somebody.

If you attack him right,

then you score a point.

But he tried

to teach the youngsters...

how to channel that aggression...

into respect for your opponent.

It was very tough living there, but I

remember that year we lived there...

as the most beautiful

and most wonderful year of my life.

I did a few tours of duty

in training camps in Lebanon...

and then the leadership sent us

to Libya for special training.

The training was hard and advanced.

We were there for about one month.

It seemed to me we were

getting special training.

We began to get a feeling that

something big was underway.

He dreamt always to be once

at the Olympics.

Years before,

before I knew him...

he said that he was thinking

about to get to the Olympics once...

because, I think, for every athlete,

that's the climax of your career.

For Andre and the rest

of the Israeli team...

the 1972 Olympics held

a particular significance...

because they were held in Munich,

Germany, the birthplace of Nazism.

There was a feeling that this was

a huge event for the Israeli team...

to be coming and attending...

and therefore their presence

in the Olympic village...

certainly their presence

in the opening ceremony...

when their team marched under the flag

of the Star of David...

were very emotional moments.

The Germans saw the games

as an opportunity to erase...

the negative memories many still had

of the 1936 Berlin Olympics...

which had been misused by the Nazis

for propaganda purposes.

Twenty-seven years

after the end of the war...

Munich was the ideal opportunity

to show the world...

the new democratic face

of Germany.

The friendliness was in overdrive.

It was a massive attempt,

and it hit you straightaway...

Gerald Seymour

ITN News Reporter

to appear open and modern

and shorn of their past.

To help promote this new

non-militaristic image of Germany...

security was kept deliberately lax.

Police were banned

from the Olympic sites...

and in their place were

clad in specially designed outfits.

Jacov Springer

Israeli Weightlifting Coach

Jacov Springer

Israeli Weightlifting Coach

But for some of the Israeli team,

it was not so easy to erase the past.

My father, he was five times

in the Olympic Games.

Five times is a special thing.

He was born in Poland in 1921.

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