Judith Deutsch was Austria's top
swimmer in the mid-1930s and was selected to represent her country at
the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After hearing about what Jewish athletes were
going through in Germany, she and two other Austrian Jewish swimmers, Ruth Langer and Lucy Goldman boycotted the Games.
In a letter to the Austrian Olympic Committee,
Deutsch wrote: "
...I protest...as a Jew I cannot participate in the
Berlin Olympic Games. My conscience does not allow me. This is a
personal decision and is not to be contested. I completely understand
that I am giving up my rights to participate as the Austrian contestant
in the Olympic Games. I sincerely hope you will understand this decision
and not pressure me to change my mind."
Other sportsmen and women who boycotted the Olympics were American women’s swimming coach
Charlotte
Epstein, U.S. defending 1932 Olympic women’s Discus
champion Lillian
Copeland, Canadian amateur Welterweight boxing champion
Sammy
Luftspring, and French fencing champion Albert Wolff.
Tennis player Dennis Penn and boxer's Erich Seeling and Johann Trollmann were excluded from the German Olympic team for lack of racial purity.
The most vigorous and effective proponent of an American boycott of the
1936 Olympics in Germany was a devout
Irish-American Catholic known all his life for his stubborn opposition
to racial and religious discrimination. Born in
1878, Jeremiah Titus Mahoney
By 1935, Mahoney had ascended to the presidency of the Amateur
Athletic Union, making him responsible for the selection of America's
Olympic team. After long reflection, he came to the conclusion that
American participation in Hitler's Olympics would serve only to
legitimate a wholly evil regime, a regime that was discriminating
against its own Jewish citizens as it chose its Olympic teams.
"There is no room for discrimination on grounds of race, color, or creed in the Olympics,"
One of the three Austrian swimmers to Boycott the Berlin Olympics was 15 year old Ruth Langer, she escaped to London in 1939 she won the last British long-distance championship swim in the Thames. Five weeks later, World War II began and she was evacuated from London
to Bath as an ''enemy alien.'' She was later allowed to return to
London, where she met John Lawrence, whom she married in 1943. and lived there until she died 2nd May 1999 aged 77
In 1995, the Federation of Austrian Swimming Clubs lifted the ban imposed on her. The Federation president wrote:
''When
I learned in recent weeks that athletes who refused to serve as
window-dressing for the Hitler regime received a lifetime ban . . . I
blushed with anger and shame. I am deeply ashamed of the decision taken
at that time.
''You, who as an irreproachable and decent athlete,
did everything you could to achieve athletic success, were already
stamped by the Nuremberg Laws as a second-class person, and for
renouncing athletic success in order to show solidarity with the
persecuted, you were punished.
''Those responsible today for the
Federation of Austrian Swimming Clubs are glad that you survived that
cruel and merciless time and humbly apologise for what our predecessors
did. All of your athletic successes and achievements are hereby
confirmed and recorded in the perpetual scoring tables. You, Ms.
Lawrence, are an example to young people. We are proud that you are
there.''
