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Sports

Maccabi Games Guest Remembers Teammates Killed at Munich Olympics

Alon Howard made a choice in September 1972 that saved his life.

On Sept. 5, 1972, in Munich, Germany, 17-year-old Israeli junior Olympian Alon Howard escaped violent death by sheer luck.

He will never forget that 11 others on his team did not.

"They're all dead," Howard heard as he awoke the next morning.

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The former flyweight wrestler told the 1,200 young Jewish athletes at this week's Main Line-Philadelphia to never forget the 11 Israelis massacred at the Munich Olympics by the terrorist group Black September. At Sunday's opening ceremonies in Villanova University's Pavilion, he also sat down for an interview with Patch to describe the confusion and anguish he and the other surviving Israeli team members endured.

“The morning it happened, the Munich police came to us and told us what happened. They wanted to make sure we were protected. We were told a lot of conflicting things as it was going on, and I remember later that night, Sept. 5, we were told that they were rescued," Howard told Patch. "Then that next morning, I remember waking up and someone said, ‘They’re all dead.’ That’s how we were woken up the next day. I can never forget that."

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The flyweight wrestler had slept at a friend's apartment in the Olympic complex the night of Sept. 4, rather than in the Israeli national team quarters as wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg—virtually a second father to Howard—had invited him to do.

“I was traveling with a friend from the Israeli youth team and Moshe wanted me to stay with the Olympic team that night,” Howard told Patch. “I was young, 17 with hopes of competing for the Olympic team in 1976. Moshe was like a father to me. He was my coach and very close friend. He was someone who cared about sports and the athletes he coached. I remember telling Moshe that I was with a friend of mine and I would meet him the next morning. He wasn’t there.”

Howard found out the morning of Sept. 5 about the eight Palestinian terrorists that infiltrated the Olympic Village carrying machine guns in duffel bags. They broke into the apartment complex where Israeli coaches were staying, and were confronted by Weinberg. He tried battling the terrorists, before he was shot in the face and forced to find more hostages at gunpoint.

It was Weinberg who led the terrorists to the apartment that housed the weightlifters and wrestlers, hoping they could combat the terrorists. But the six wrestlers and weightlifters were asleep and caught by surprise.

As the Israelis were being led from one apartment to another down the spiral staircase of the building, Weinberg fought back again, allowing wrestler Gad Tsobari to escape through an underground parking garage, before being shot again and killed. Weightlifter Yossef Romano, an Israeli soldier in the Six-Day War, attacked another terrorist and was also shot and killed.

“I think about those days all of the time," Howard told Patch. "I have pictures of Moshe and I’m very close to his family to this day. Moshe had a three-month old son that he would never see again. Moshe was an amazing person, and he deserves to be remembered. It’s why it was important for me to be here at the ceremonies for this.”

Howard returned to Israel with his slain teammates in the belly of the plane. He moved to the United States in 1977—now living in Huntington Valley, Montgomery County, with his wife and three children—and he has an Olympic portrait of the 11 victims hanging in his living room, looking toward the heavens.

“It’s an important part of Jewish history and an important part of history for everyone that we should never forget,” Howard said. “We can never forget.”

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