August 5, 1936, 90 years ago: Helene Mayer wins a Silver Medal at the Olympics. Ordinarily, an athlete finishing 2nd in an Olympic event wouldn't be a big deal. This time, it is.
At 17, she won a Gold Medal in foil fencing at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, and was a national hero in Weimar Germany. She competed again in 1932 in Los Angeles, but just before a match, she was told that her boyfriend had died in a military training exercise. This was only a year after losing her father. Shaken, she only finished 5th.
She stayed in America to attend college as an exchange student. But when Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, her membership at her native fencing club was terminated, because she was Jewish. She taught at California colleges, and then in 1935 her German citizenship was canceled with the Nuremberg Laws.
There was a movement to boycott the 1936 Olympics, scheduled for Berlin. To avoid this, Nazi authorities chose her as the token Jew on the German Olympic team. She won a Silver Medal, and, on the podium, in an effort to protect her family, gave a Nazi salute.
She went back to America, and won the U.S. women's foil championship 8 times in 13 years from 1934 to 1946. In 1952, with World War II over and freedom back in place, but perhaps knowing she was dying, she returned to her homeland, and got married, spending her last months in happiness. She was posthumously elected to the U.S. Fencing Association Hall of Fame.
Helen Mayer died on October 10, 1953, of breast cancer, in Munich, Germany. She was only 42 years old.
No comments:
Post a Comment