Swimmer Shlomit Nir, who survived the Munich Olympics terrorism attack, believes the power of sport can bring Jews and Arabs closer together.
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Speaking to Efe ahead of the 50th anniversary of the attack next month, Nir remembers the exact time and her initial reaction to the attack that changed her life and killed 11 Israeli teammates.
Now 69 and retired, she leads an NGO that promotes the interaction of young Jewish and Arab women in Israel through sports.
For several years, she has given talks about her athletic career and the Munich legacy in schools, on military bases and in different types of institutions.
"I've been trying all these years that I've been working to bring Arab women with Jewish women together, to play together, and then to sit and talk and know each other and open their minds that it is possible to live together," she says.
In the early hours of September 5, eight Palestinian militants armed with rifles, pistols and grenades entered the apartment of the male Israeli Olympic team members, killing a referee and a coach and taking nine hostages.
"I woke up at 7 o?clock. I went out of my room and a woman who was taking care (of us) there called me and asked me to look around to the window and to see that soldiers are already sitting very close to keep us (safe)," she said at her apartment in northern Tel Aviv.
She spent the rest of the day with the survivors on the ninth floor of an Olympic Village, from where she saw the deployment of German security forces and witnessed the negotiation between the Black September militants and police.
It was not until after 10pm that she saw her compatriots leave the building blindfolded and take off on helicopters.
Later, the Israelis died in the failed German rescue operation.
"We still had this hope that maybe they would survive and a unit from Israel, an army unit would come to save them alive, all the hostages," she said.
"But the Germans did not allow Israel to come or to send any unit of soldiers to do something."
The swimmer returned home with the rest of the Israeli delegation and 11 coffins bearing the remains of her teammates.
It was Nir's second and last Olympic appearance.
Later she was marrired, studied and volunteered for years helping wounded soldiers.
In 1994 she began working at the sports ministry, where for 25 years she led programs promoting women's inclusion in professional sports.
Australian Associated Press
