Remembering Munich 1972: Horrific personal accounts of Olympics’ gravest hour

As part of an agreement with the families, Germany has agreed to acknowledge failures that authorities made at the time. Members of the Palestinian group Black September broke into the Olympic Village, killed two athletes from Israel’s national team and took nine more hostage on September 5, 1972.

The attackers hoped to force the release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel as well as two left-wing extremists in West German jails. All nine hostages and a West German police officer died during a rescue attempt by German forces.

Bharat Sundaresan talks to India’s four 1972 Olympians, who relive their horrific personal accounts of the Olympics’ gravest hour, the Munich massacre.

I saw a man with stocking over his head, it was unnerving
– Ashok Kumar, Hockey

That morning, as we left our rooms for practice, I saw a lot of people standing on the little lawn in front of our block. Just 30 feet away separated by the lawn were the Israeli quarters. That’s how it works in the Olympics village, with countries being allocated blocks alphabetically.

Next to our door in the left-hand corner, I saw a man on the upper floor with a stocking over his head and a rifle in his hand. And he was shouting and talking to one of the many German police personnel who had surrounded the area. I didn’t quite understand the language but it sounded like they were negotiating a deal.

There were a lot of TV cameras around too. Someone informed us that terrorists had entered and captured a few athletes. There were rumours that one of the athletes had been killed. It was all too unnerving. It’s then that one of the local German channels came to me for my version. I said a few things in my tooti-footi English. It was the first time I gave an interview to a foreign channel.

It was my dream to be at the Olympics. It was a special event for me in many ways. My father Dhyan Chandji had been invited but he couldn’t come unfortunately. I came across a colour TV for the first time in Munich.

Unfortunately the first images I saw on it were those horrible scenes of terrorists holding guns and keeping athletes captive.

We left for practice soon after, concerned about the hostages but we never imagined the ordeal would end so tragically. We heard that the terrorists were trying to get some of their colleagues released from various prisons and had other demands but they wouldn’t harm the athletes. So when we learnt the next day that they were killed brutally, time just stopped. We didn’t know their names or who they were but it was really horrible. Maybe we even crossed paths with those Israelis but didn’t realize it. We had to put it behind us soon. The hockey team had won only one gold at the three previous Olympics and there was pressure on us. We couldn’t get distracted.

Back then the communication lines back home weren’t like now, so even if they wanted to our families had no way other than telegrams of getting in touch with us. If it had happened today, our phones would have never stopped ringing.

We had heard that the German intelligence suspected some kind of security threat even before the Games began. It was the first time they employed a metal detector in the Village even for athletes.

We were disappointed to not win gold and the Munich massacre is like a bad dream that doesn’t go away. In the following years I read about how everyone involved with planning the attack was tracked down and killed, and it gave me closure in a strange way. They deserved to pay for their evil actions. I also heard later about how some of the Israelis had tried to fight their way out, and two of them had been killed in the process.

I have often put myself up in their position and thought how I would have dealt with it. Then one day there was a mock security drill on board the Indian Airlines flight, in which I was a purser. I was manning the galley right outside the cockpit. Suddenly a few men rose holding guns and knives and one of them threatened me and said he wanted to meet the pilot. Back then the cockpit had no door. It was a Boeing 737. There was another guy with the pilot, who I would later find out was the observer who had planned the secret drill. By the time I told the captain there was someone to see him, the guy with a revolver entered, and instinctively, I grabbed his neck, twisted his wrist and took the gun away. Then the observer started screaming, “Ashok kya kar rahe ho. Chodo usko, chodo usko.” And then he jumped up, and had to make me release the hold.

It took me 30 hours to snap out of the horror I was stricken with
– Parimal Chatterjee, shooter

The irony is that till the day of the massacre, it was the Indian shooting team that had additional security. India and Pakistan had been involved in a war the previous year. The German police had been given orders to be constantly around us because we had guns. They never interfered. But I often spotted them standing outside our block even at 2 am. They were there to try and make sure that we Indian shooters don’t take out our guns and shoot at Pakistanis.

I personally thought the security was slack at the Games before the attack. We were allowed to keep our weapons in our rooms, which wasn’t the case in previous Games. We weren’t complaining because we needed those weapons close to us for cleaning purposes.

Later on that fateful day, we came to know that there will be an operation and nobody is allowed to come out. I stayed in the cafeteria having tea with a couple of my friends. US athlete Rod Milburn, who went on to win the 110 m hurdles, was one of them. We heard that the terrorists and the Israelis were going to be taken in a bus and flown in a special helicopter to a nearby military airport. From there they would fly to Cairo. I later heard from friends in the German military that snipers were posted in the airport and that they killed four terrorists.

“We have nothing to do with all this. I have one goal of coming here to do my duty. I want no distraction,” Rod shot back when I tried asking him to make sense of what was transpiring. That gave me a look into the mindset of these top athletes. It was our one chance for glory in four years and it was amazing to see how they overcame this trauma almost immediately. It took me at least 30 hours to snap out of the horror I was stricken with. As shooters we are expected to have great mental strength. In the end that was what helped me.

The worst part for me personally came later. I wanted to show some kind of respect and pay tribute to those slain Israelis. But I was shocked to find out that the Indian administration did not allow us to do that. Instead they sent us on a compulsory sight-seeing trip around Munich. At that point our diplomatic relations were such that we couldn’t show any support with Israel anywhere. I still carry that regret. I wanted to wear a black arm-band, and go to the Israeli consulate, say that this is a bereavement for us. But it was prevented indirectly by packing us off in a tourist bus to go around Munich.

Whenever I see or read about any terrorist attack, I am reminded of that day. If you think about it, Munich was the first time a bunch of high-profile people who weren’t politicians or people in authority had been killed in cold blood like this.

After dinner we saw the hostage bus
– Vece Paes, hockey

The whole Village was cordoned off once the negotiations ended and they decided to give them a helicopter. But we got lucky, if you want to call it that. As we returned from dinner well past 9 pm our path accidentally crossed with that of the bus carrying the hostages. We were face-to-face with terror. We just stood by the side, and started taking pictures of the bus. Next thing we knew, three-four hours later, they were killed. It hurt. It was impactful.

Later I heard about how the terrorists ducked inside the bus in the midst of the athletes as the bus drove away towards the helicopter ramp. Terrorism and sport had never come face-to-face like this, and it shook everyone up.

Back then most of the Indian hockey players wouldn’t wake up unless they were given a cup of hot tea in the morning. It was the responsibility of Michael Kindo and I to go get it for them. That morning we left at around 5 am, but were stopped by the liaison manager who said we couldn’t go out because of some trouble in the Israeli camp. He didn’t give any more details. Soon we realized that many of the newspapers and TV sets were gone.

My family was there in Munich but staying outside the village. They knew more about what was going on than us since they had access to uninhibited news on TV.

There was a grand memorial service at the main stadium, and all the athletes were there. There was a rumour that the Olympics might be cancelled. But you can’t. The Olympics is sadly bigger than 12 athletes. And rightly it went on. The striking thing for me that told me how professional these athletes were is that even a day after they were abducted and shot, there were thousands of athletes training despite the rumours. They were used to it, geared to it and hoping that the Games would continue as normal.

My best memory of the Games came when I unexpectedly bumped into Mark Spitz one morning. It was a fanboy moment, and I took his autograph and posed for a photo with him. Next day I heard he was flown off to London because he was a Jew and the Americans were worried he was in danger. Then he came back and won seven medals.

I saw a man in red jump-suit
– Edward Sequeira, middle-distance runner

I and Sriram Singh used to sleep on the ground-floor. I was scheduled to run the next day. So I had to wake up early to train, and at around 4.20 am from the window I saw a man in a red jumpsuit and a black athletics bag climbing the first-floor with a gun in his hand, and running after another man who jumped down. From where I was, they looked lean, like marathon runners.

This was one year after the ‘71 war between India and Pakistan, and my first thought was that Pakistan was attacking us. I told Sriram, “See that all our front doors are locked. And we will try running from the back and over the fence.”

Then I saw a few others wearing masks running into a room on the top-floor with guns and grabbing hold of a few Israeli athletes and pushing them inside. I realized then that they weren’t after us. During that period they were only circulating sports papers in the Village, so that there was little coverage about the massacre.

I have never been able to get over the sight of the man in the red jump-suit and it has always haunted me. Despite being terrified, I and Sriram did manage to take a few pictures of that guy. Later we found out he was one of the German cops.

Not to forget all those helpless athletes shouting from the building, baap re. They mainly took wrestlers and weightlifters. The previous night, one of the wrestlers had his birthday and we had heard them singing happy birthday. The next day, he was getting killed. It was tragic.I had never thought I would be within touching distance of such horrific terror. I hardly slept after that over the next seven days in the village.