Munich massacre families refuse to take part in 50th anniversary events

Haaretz report suggests relatives of the Israeli athletes and coaches believe the latest offer of compensation from Germany is 'crumbs and leftovers'

Families of the Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 Munich Olympics are refusing to take part in 50th anniversary memorial events unless there is “proper compensation” by the German government.

According to a Haaretz report, there is a continuing row between the families of the 11 Israeli athletes and the German authorities. The athletes and their coaches were attacked by Palestinian terrorists in the Munich Olympic village in September 1972, but many of the deaths occurred in a shoot-out at Munich airport between the terrorists and German police.

There is understood to be a new offer to the victims’ families, ostensibly of “several million dollars”, together with a previously unexpressed acceptance of liability for Germany’s failure to protect or rescue the Israelis. But the latest offer, which, Haaretz says, includes a German plan to convene historians and legal experts to research the previously withheld thousands of documents relating to the murders, has been dismissed by the families as “crumbs and leftovers”.

Germany tabled the new offer after the embarrassing possibility emerged that there would be no victims’ families taking part in any public memorial events this September. Anke Spitzer, who together with fellow widow Ilana Romano, is among the highest profile members of the bereaved families, has already declined to travel to Germany as a guest of the Bavarian regional leader Markus Söder and lay a wreath at the memorial site in Munich’s Olympic Village.

Last summer Ms Spitzer and Ms Romano — whose husbands were Andre Spitzer, the Israel fencing coach, and Yosef Romano, one of the Israeli weightlifters — finally achieved recognition for the athletes when a special ceremony was held at the Tokyo Olympics in their memory. But though there has been symbolic recognition of the deaths of the murdered Israelis, the financial compensation seems to be running a long way behind.