Published: 31 January 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
AT THE 1936 BERLIN Olympics, the women’s fencing medal ceremony witnessed three medal winners with Jewish backgrounds. Ilona Elek, a Hungarian, won the gold medal. Helene Mayer, a German, won the silver. And Ellen Muller-Preis, an Austrian, won bronze.
All of them stood together atop the medal platform. It should be noted that all three women were half-Jewish and none of them considered themselves Jewish. This denial made no difference to the Nazis, however, who deemed them to be Jewish.
A photograph of the ceremony shows Mayer, the silver medal winner, standing on the podium and giving the Nazi salute.
Mayer’s bizarre gesture created consternation and a great deal of comment. She was born in 1910 to a Jewish father and a Lutheran mother. Although her physician father was active in Jewish organisations, Helene and her two brothers were raised in a secular home and she attended a Christian school.
FULL STORY When Jews ruled the fencing world (Tablet)
Photo: Helene Mayer’s Heil Hitler salute at the 1936 Games (The Olympians)
