c. 2008 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ The protests over China’s human rights record and its treatment of Tibet as it prepares to play host to the 2008 Olympics underline a key fact: Sports and politics are supposed to remain separate, but rarely do.
A new exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum outlines another stark example of when athletes become unwitting political ambassadors: The 1936 Berlin Olympics, used by the Nazis as international propaganda to trumpet the strength, nobility and supposed “superiority” of the German people.
The exhibit, touring the United States since 1998, follows Germany as it tries to regain stature after its withering defeat in World War I. Germany won the 1936 Olympic bid in 1931, two years before Adolf Hitler came to power. But international debate on whether countries should boycott the games grew heated as Germany banned Jews and Gypsies from its teams, and racism and anti-Semitism in the country increased.
Many know the story of American runner Jesse Owens who, along with other black athletes, triumphantly took home 10 medals at the Berlin games. The exhibit reveals the lesser known fact that Owens was a sensation in Germany even before the games and was mobbed and adored for his skill and charisma.
Also frequently glossed over is that Americans’ attitudes towards blacks in the 1930s were not much better than Germans’. Jim Crow laws, segregated drinking fountains and the threat of lynching were very real in the United States, but largely nonexistent during the German games.
“At least in Germany, we didn’t have to sit at the back of the bus,” Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, said, according to the exhibit’s curator.
In the end, Germany dominated the Olympics and projected strength to the world, reviving the spirits of its people. As the games took place, just a few miles away from the Olympic stadiums in Berlin, another large construction project was under way _ the German concentration camps. Many German athletes, including medal winners from previously Olympics, died in the camps.
“The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936” opened at the Museum on Friday (April 25) and runs through Aug. 17. No passes are needed. The Museum is open seven days a week. Call (202) 488-0400 or visit http://www.ushmm.org for more information.
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