American Insistence On Fair Play For Jewish Athletes

Taranaki Daily News, 26 November 1934, Page 11

American Insistence On Fair Play For Jewish Athletes

GERMAN “GUARANTEES” THAT ARE PRACTICALLY WORTHLESS

JQETERMINATION of the question whether or not the United States of America shall stand aloof from the Olympic Games of 1936, to be held in Berlin, is of world-wide importance in amateur athletics, for the American nation is ever the dominant one at the Games, which would lose their world-representative nature if a United States team did not compete. The American Olympic Association has stated plainly that United States athletes will compete at the 1936 Games only if the Jewish athletes in Germany are treated fairly, and it recently sent its president, Avery Brundage, to Berlin to investigate the position. Brundage was authorised to decide the question of United States participation in the Games, but he has preferred that this responsibility shall be undertaken by the full committee of his association. It may not be unfair to assume that he would have exercised the power given to him and have decided that the United States would enter the 1936 Games if he had been fully satisfied, by his investigations, that Germany was now giving fair treatment to her Jewish athletes and that she would continue to do so. Later news from Berlin shows that Brundage had vfhy good reason to throw the responsibility for the decision back on to his committee. -:?■ * Since Brundage ' visited Berlin four guarantees to Jewish sports organisations have been issued by Hans von Tschammer-Osten, Reich sports leader. It would be more accurate to say that they are politely termed guarantees; they are no more than promises so hedged about with qualifications and reservations as to have nothing of the true nature of a guarantee in them. For instance, Jewish athletes are promised the right to train among themselves and to take part in contests except where a Jewish sports association is suppressed by the police Tor “enmity to the State.” That is worthless without a real guarantee that success of Jewish athletes would not be regarded as anti-“ Aryan” and therefore as being “enmity to the State,” and that the very wide powers of the German police would not be exercised unduly in interference with the purely athletic activities of Jews. ■ ' .. . «■ \ -X ■■ I . Another of the so-called “guarantees” allows German national non-Jewish sports organisations to act in the interests of . Jewish sports organisations “if they see fit to do so.” The qualification reads suspiciously like a hint that they should not see fit to help Jewish sports bodies. “Aryan” public opinion probably will press strongly against their doing so. Another of the “guarantees” consists of an intimation to “Aryan” sports associations that the central sports authorities have no objection to their entering contests with Jewish athletic societies.

Here, again, the permissive attitude will probably be more nominal than real.

w«• -» A specific instance of promise outstripping performance is to be found in relation to the ether “guarantee.” This gives Jewish sports associations the right to use athletic fields and gymnasiums belonging to the State or to • r municipalities, so long as they are not needed for purely “Aryan” athletic societies. However,, this “guarantee” is only a renewal of a privilege hitherto nominally enjoyed by Jewish sports organisations. Actually, it has been useless, because the Jewish associations have been informed in every instance that the fields and gymnasiums they desired to use were already booked up to capacity. Can one doubt that this way of evading compliance with a promise will be continued? 'w* * ■ Other privileges of “Aryan” athletic associations are withheld from Jews, but the Jewish groups are hot calledv upon—directly, at any rate—to contribute funds to the central sports organisations. There is no evidence that, apart from this exemption from monetary contributions, the Jewish sportsmen in Germany are any better off now than there were in the earliest part of the Hitler regime. This column is not the place for discussion of general political and racial questions, but it is quite clear that Jewish sportsmen and . sportswomen in Germany are oppressed in a way which is a flagrant violation of the principles and purpose of sport, and while that condition continues Germany has no true right to-’ x the holding of the Olympic Games. * * * Some people may affect to believe that the attitude of the American Olym-, . pic Association on this question is not wholly altruistic, that it is. caused partly by a desire to placate Jewish contributors to the funds for American representation at the Games, but I prefer to think that the association is animated entirely by the principle of equal rights for all men and women in sport. The association is the body .in the best position for leading a movement to remove the taint which Germany, by discrimination between the self-styled Aryans and the Jews in sport has given to the Games, for America is the strongest nation in athletics, and the strongest should help the weak. Moreover, America is, of all the nation? which brought about the revival of the Olympic Games, the farthest removed from European political turmoil. America has accepted the responsibility without hesitation, and I, for one, hope that it will continue to serve the cause of true sport- in this respect by refusing to be satisfied until Germany gives a solemn undertaking that Jewish sportsmen shall have rights fully equal to those of “Aryans” in all matters 'of sport, and provides machinery, under such an undertaking, for ready discovery and rectification of any abuses of it. A. L. C.