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Haven’t seen the movie, but last night I’ve heard a first person account.

Dan Alon was a promising Israeli fencer and part of the Israeli delegation to the Munich Olympic games in 1972. He survived the September 5th massacre when eight terrorists from the Palestinian group Black September kidnapped the Israeli athletes with a demand to release 200 prisoners from Israeli jails.

Alon has told his story three times, once to his family, once in Oxford and last night here in Cambridge; all within a few weeks. Not being a professional speaker, his telling was raw, touching and frank. I’d like to retell some of the stories you wouldn’t be able to read elsewhere.

Alon, with his methodical style, started with a brief history of his life. He set up the story by telling of his army service, fencing successes and training and friendships with his coach and other members of the delegation.

The German fencing team invited the Israeli fencers for pre-games training; an opportunity eagerly taken. So it happened, the fencers arrived along with their coach, Andre Spitzer, to the Olympic village first. There was one entry to a five unit (each sleeping 6, 2 per room, one of which had a balcony) complex where the whole Israeli delegation would stay. Being first to arrive, they had their choice of rooms. Alon wanted to occupy room #2 and his close friend and coach, Spitzer wanted room #1. They went back-and-forth for a bit but both kept their choices.

The games begun and Alon won several matches and eventually lost to a Brit on his way to the quarter finals. He was devastate; the feeling did not persist long given the following events.

On the day of the attack, Alon tells, Spitzer was in the Netherlands after being given special permission to visit his wife and child there. He promised to return that night. When he got back he told Alon that he missed the train, but despite his wife’s pleas to catch the morning train, they drove to the next stop and missed it again. He persisted and they drove to the next station and eventually got on the train.

At 4:30 that night, the terrorists round up the Israelis. Alon, together with one other fencer and two sport-marksmen congregated in unit #2. At that time they were unsure what was happening, attributing the noise to some delegation’s celebration. When the shooting came closer Alon went to investigate and happened to be back-to-back with a masked terrorist who miraculously did not notice him. They finally understood the grave situation they were in.

The terrorists never opened their unit’s door, which was quite surprising to them at the time. They contemplated using their sharpshooting guns to kill one of the terrorists, but voted against it since it will disclose their location. At one point, the German police was waving at them through the window and nearly giving them away before they signaled them to stop.

They decided to jump over the balcony, at 5 second intervals and run to the German police. They made it. They later found out that the reason why the terrorists never opened their door was that one of the members who was forced to disclose the delegations’ units did not specify #2 and by doing so saved their lives.

The following night they were told that all members of the delegation are out of harm’s way only to be told a few hours later the horrid truth. The eleven athlete-hostages were murdered and among them, Alon’s close friend, Spitzer. The details of the “rescue” attempt fiasco are still debated. Much of the longer term outcomes are similarly still shrouded in secrecy.

Alon quit fencing after the massacre. He did not think it was a bad decision to continue the games since as an athlete he appreciated the effort and dedication it took to get there and did not want to ruin the opportunity for others.

He saw the Spielberg movie and gave it praise saying that the overall details of the kidnapping events were accurate. He did not know about the depicted accuracy of the series of assassinations carried out by the Mossad and other Elite Israeli units following the massacre. He said that contrary to his former beliefs, after seeing the movie, he thinks that economic measures rather than assassinations would have probably been more effective, saying that killing one terrorist does not prevent one or more from replacing him.

I thank Alon for his story and insights and I hope he doesn’t mind me retelling them. It’s a story about tragedy, heroism, friendship, dire failures and the inconsequential-seeming decisions we make that become turning points in our lives, if not, as in this case, a matter of life or death.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2006 at 10:57 pm and is filed under cambridge, personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.