Families of Munich dead want IOC to remember 1972 tragedy

 Tel Aviv: Forty years after 11 Israelis were killed by Palestinian gunmen at the 1972 Munich Games, the families of the dead are urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to organise an official commemoration. Two widows of athletes who were killed have long campaigned for the 1972 victims to be remembered at Olympic opening ceremonies - either through the IOC president’s welcome speech or with a moment of silence - but they fear their call for a commemoration in London on July 27 will again be ignored. “We want the International Olympic Committee … with all 10,000 young athletes in front of them, to say: ‘Let us not forget what happened in Munich’. (We want this) only for one reason, so it will never happen again,” said Ankie Spitzer, whose fencing coach husband, Andre, was one of the 11 Israelis killed. She said the IOC did not want to mention the tragedy at high profile events such as the opening ceremony as it would annoy Arab countries. [caption id=“attachment_237950” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Reuters”] [/caption] “They say we bring politics into the Olympics, which is not true, because I didn’t ask them to say that there were 11 Israelis. They tell us that the Arab delegations will get up and leave, to which I said: ‘It’s okay, if they don’t understand what the Olympics are all about, let them leave.’” Although the IOC participates in remembrance services organised by others, it has yet to arrange its own memorial, a senior Israeli Olympic Committee official said. “Whenever we have discussed the issue with the IOC, our position has always been, at every meeting, that the time has come for the International Olympic Committee to initiate its own commemoration,” Efraim Zinger, secretary general of the Olympic Committee of Israel, told Reuters. The IOC said in a written response that the Munich 11 had not been forgotten and it would continue to attend commemorative events, including in London in the second week of the Games organised by the Israeli Olympic Committee. Reuters