Munich Olympic Massacre: Widows Say Palestinian Terrorists Tortured Israeli Hostages, German Officials Covered It Up

Details surrounding the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972 that left 11 Israeli athletes dead are being released after a 43-year struggle to obtain information from German authorities. The incident, in which Palestinian terrorists from the group, dubbed Black September, killed eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Village, was dubbed a “hostage story” by much of the media. However, new information secured by widows of the victims claims that the deaths were so much more. Evidence suggests that the victims were not only killed, but tortured and beaten in the brutal attack against the Israeli athletes. One athlete was castrated as the other captives were forced to watch, details that the widows say must be made public in a bid to provide the real story of what happened to the doomed athletes that horrific day in Munich.

The Daily Mail reports that two widows, Ilana Romano, the widow of middleweight weightlifting champion Yossef Romano, and Ankie Spitzer, the widow of fencing coach Andrei Spitzer, are doing everything in their power to ensure the real story about the Munich Olympic massacre is made known to the public. The two women claim that it took decades to secure the information about what exactly happened to their husbands that horrific day in Munich. They say knowing the information has been painful, but that the public deserves to know the truth about what happened to the Israeli athletes that day.

Widow Spitzer says she wants the story to be told so that the rhetoric surrounding the massacre will change. Instead of calling the event a horrible hostage situation that turned deadly after a failed rescue attempt, she wants the public to know that the Palestinian terrorists came that day to Munich not only to kill, but to torture the men they held captive. Despite the terrorists’ claims that they had no intention of killing any of their prisoners but that the failed hostage rescue attempt forced them to kill the remaining hostages, Spitzer says it was all a lie. The Black September terrorists came to the Olympic Village in Munich to kill the Israeli athletes.

“The terrorists always claimed that they didn’t come to murder anyone — they only wanted to free their friends from prison in Israel. They said it was only because of the botched-up rescue operation at the airport that they killed the rest of the hostages, but it’s not true. They came to hurt people. They came to kill.”

The Munich Olympic massacre widows say that their first big break regarding evidence of the torture and beatings of the men came after Spitzer spoke with German TV for a 20th anniversary special about the massacre in 1992. After the airing of the interview, a man contacted Spitzer claiming he had 80-pages of information regarding the case and thought she should read it. After reading the documents, the widows pushed the German government for more information about the massacre and were eventually allowed to see previously secret government documents outlining the torture and beatings that took place in the Olympic Village.

Ilana Romano said reading the documents was difficult as she learned that her husband, a weightlifting champion, had been castrated. She says the images she saw during the investigation will never leave her mind.

“What they did is that they cut off his genitals through his underwear and abused him. Can you imagine the nine others sitting around tied up? They watched this.”

The two widows will release the newly obtained information will be released in a documentary called Munich 1972 & Beyond. The documentary will focus on the little-known facts about the torture and beatings that took place during the massacre as the media focused heavily on the security breach aspects of the tragedy instead of the victims’ plight. The victims’ family members now want the truth to be told.

[Photo by AP Photo]