JERUSALEM—Four decades after 11 of their country's team members were murdered at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Israelis learned this week that before their deaths the sportsmen had been severely beaten by their Palestinian captors and in one case castrated.
The widows of two of the athletes offered evidence of the torture in an interview with the New York Times and in a documentary film that is to be released in a few months.
The violence inflicted on the victims before their deaths had been kept secret by the German authorities for 20 years, presumably in order to spare the families unnecessary pain. However, relatives pressed over the years for more details about the 20 hours in which the athletes had been in the militants’ hands before their deaths.
"We asked for more details but we were told, over and over, there was nothing," said Mrs. Ankie Spitzer, widow of fencing coach Andre Spitzer.
Finally, in 1992, German officials turned over to two of the widows representing the families of the athletes—Mrs. Spitzer and Mrs. Ilana Romano, widow of weightlifter Yosef Romano—an extensive file, containing hundreds of pages and photographs taken immediately after the killings.
The evidence showed that the athletes had been beaten and a number had suffered serious injuries, including broken bones. The most shocking revelation was that Romano had been castrated. The weightlifter had been shot just after the Palestinian break-in to the Israeli pavilion in the Olympic village when he struck one of the militants and snatched his rifle. Another athlete who resisted was also shot to death. It is not known whether Romano’s castration occurred before he died of his gunshot wounds or afterwards. He was left bleeding on the floor in front of the other athletes who had been bound.
After protracted negotiations with German authorities the Israeli hostages and their captors were taken by helicopter to an airport. German security forces had prepared an ambush there but it was clumsily executed. In the ensuing shootout, the militants shot to death the bound Israelis.
In the aftermath, the Israeli Mossad staged an extensive manhunt in Europe and the Middle East for leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization believed associated with the Munich massacre.
"The terrorists always claimed that they didn’t come to murder anyone, that they only wanted to free their friends from prison in Israel," said Mrs. Spitzer. "But it’s not true. They came to kill."