For bereaved families, the road to Rio runs through Munich

This week, when the private memorial ceremony for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered at the Munich Olympics was held in London, it was obvious to all sides — the victims’ families, the Olympic Committee of Israel and the International Olympic Committee — that in another four years, at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, there would be no moment of silence for those who had perished.

The IOC, which has, and has always had, members who represent countries in favor of the moment of silence for the victims of Munich, has never succeeded in passing a resolution instituting such a moment because of pressure by Arab countries. Nor did London, which hosted the games on the 40th anniversary of the massacre, have any news for the victims’ widows and families. The ceremony that was held at the Israeli Embassy there during the games was honored with the presence of dignitaries, but still, there was no moment of silence.

For Ilana Romano, the widow of weightlifter Yossef Romano, the disappointment that she suffered in London was not the end of the matter. She does not intend to give up the struggle that she has waged over the past several years, whose purpose is to make the IOC commemorate the athletes. In addition, it seems that over the past four years, Romano has taken the fight up a notch and chosen an address closer to home: Alex Gilady, an Israeli member of the IOC. Gilady, who became a member of the IOC in 1994, said that he respected the decision not to hold a minute of silence.

For the Israeli media, Sports Minister Limor Livnat, and, of course, the families themselves, Gilady’s statement was enough. Although he is an independent representative on the IOC (he does not represent Israel there), Gilady has become a target. Ilana Romano leveled harsh accusations at him during a meeting, adding, “You do not represent us.” Other representatives of the families spoke of the fact that the Olympic Committee of Israel, and Alex Gilady as well, were not doing enough to commemorate the victims of the massacre. It should be noted that Gilady has chosen to remain silent on the issue.

Hava Gilady, Alex Gilady’s former wife (they were divorced 36 years ago), has been watching from the sidelines over the past several years.

For many years, Gilady has refused to be interviewed or to comment on the uproar concerning the commemoration of the victims of Munich. In the summer of 1972, when the massacre took place, Hava was still the wife of sportscaster Alex Gilady, who, together with Dan Shilon, broadcast the shocking images of the terrorists’ invasion of the Israeli athletes’ dormitory, and later the chain of failures that led to their deaths.

Gilady also returned on the same flight as the coffins to a country in shock.

This week, for the first time, Hava Gilady, now in her early 70s, told Israel Hayom about the special relationship that she and Alex had with the Romano family, which lost its husband and father, and with the Weinberg family, which lost Moshe (Moni) Weinberg, the Israelis’ wrestling and boxing coach in Munich. “I’m talking about this now because I feel that Alex is being attacked unjustly,” she said in a meeting at a caf in Tel Aviv. “I have no interest in defending him, but I want to have my say as this attack goes on.”

“We were the first to help”

Alex Gilady was Hava’s second husband. Her first husband was Maj. Avraham “Bumi” Barkai, who was supposed to assume command of the Dakar submarine when it arrived from Portsmouth to Haifa. But the Dakar never made it to port. It was lost, together with its 69 crew members.

Hava, who was in her 30s at the time, suddenly found herself a widow.

Slowly, she tried to pick up the pieces. She later met Alex Gilady, a former navy man who was working as a sportscaster. They were married in the spring of 1972, three months before Alex went to the Olympics in Munich on assignment with the Israel Broadcasting Authority. In the weeks before his departure, Channel One aired profiles of the athletes who were to represent Israel at the Games in order to introduce them to the public. Gilady met the Romanos while working on one of the profiles. In the profile that aired on the eve of their departure, Yossef, tall and muscular, was seen holding his baby daughter in his arms. The profile was optimistic, and it was evident that Gilady had connected with Romano on an emotional level. This week, too, Hava recalled that something about the Romanos “went to Alex’s heart.” Gilady also prepared a profile on Moshe Weinberg, also a young father to a month-old son named Guri.

Then came September 5, which became one of the darkest days in the history of Israeli sports. The members of the Israeli delegation and the accompanying crew members returned to Israel immediately after the massacre. Most were in shock. “I remember that Alex came back after the massacre and uttered a sentence that he repeats to this day: ‘I suffered no more or less than any other Israeli,’” says Hava. Still, she says, “Something inside him changed after that.”

Hava recalls that immediately upon returning to Israel, Alex devoted himself to helping the families rebuild. Together, she and Alex stayed close to the widows in the months and years after the massacre. “I remember that we were absolutely certain that there had to be mutual responsibility here. I understood what the families were going through, since I too had experienced mourning that became a national event.”

The Giladys decided to help the bereaved families, and Alex used his social and business connections to that end. “The Romanos, who moved to an apartment near Ramat Aviv, received daily visits from Alex or from me, and most of our time,” Hava recalls. “We couldn’t leave them alone, nor did we want to. Our fates were intertwined. I remember that Alex even went to buy a Fiat Sport car for Ilana. I don’t know whether Ilana even had a driver’s license at the time, but Alex had connections and he helped in every way that he could."

“When the widows needed to go to the municipality or to government offices, Alex would help them get through the bureaucracy. I think that the profiles he did of the families before they went to Munich had a strong effect on him, because afterward, he saw the athletes murdered and it never let him go. Any question that Ilana or Mimi [Weinberg] had, anything they wanted — we were the first ones there. And it wasn’t just the widows, but also the other people in the delegation. I remember that when Esther [Roth-Shahamorov] wanted to marry Peter, we took it on ourselves to organize the wedding. I went with Esther to a bridal salon, and Alex ran around getting everything that was necessary for the party. At that time, those people were really our family.”

“She’s Ilana’s daughter”

Gilady recalls that the relationship continued even long after the massacre. Their friendship extended to other victims’ families as well.

Still, she says, “life went on, and the orphaned children grew up.” She goes on to recount, “Ilana Romano devoted herself to commemorating the victims, but the idea for the minute of silence in the Olympic Games after Munich was not at the top of her agenda. I feel that the debate about the minute of silence began only when Alex got his position on the IOC. Suddenly, the families realized that now they had someone they could talk to about the minute of silence. They thought: Look, we have a representative there all of a sudden, somebody who is really one of us — someone who had become almost a member of the family.”

The years passed, Alex and Hava Gilady split up, and their ties with the families loosened over time. But when the Romanos’ daughter was about to be married, invitations were sent to both Alex and Hava. “By that time, Ilana had started criticizing Alex directly, accusing him of not doing enough to commemorate the victims,” Gilady says. “I couldn’t figure out where this criticism was coming from, and I couldn’t see myself going to the wedding. But Alex told me that he was going to go. ‘It’s Ilana’s daughter. I can’t not go.’"

"He was able to separate the Ilana who criticized him from the Ilana with whom he had been close during all those difficult years.”

The tension between the victims’ families and Alex Gilady reached a peak about two weeks ago. Guri Weinberg, Moshe Weinberg’s son, wrote an article for Fox News in which he recounted, for first time, the meeting between Ilana Romano and Alex Gilady.

During the meeting, Weinberg wrote, Romano spoke harshly to Gilady, asking him how he could agree with the decision not to hold a minute of silence when he knew how Yossef had been murdered. Weinberg added, “This man saw my father's dead, naked body thrown out front of the Olympic Village for all the world to see.” He also wrote that Gilady’s face was “stone cold with no emotion,” and that he left the meeting immediately after Ilana’s outburst.

Hava read and listened to everything that went on. When she talks about it, her eyes fill with tears. “I do not judge Ilana at all,” she says.

“After all, I too waged a war over commemoration. We fought to keep the fallen of the Dakar from being forgotten. For 30 years, I would jump at every report, every mention of it. My greatest fear was that my late husband would be forgotten. I can imagine the families’ terrible fear."

But I can talk only about myself — that the moment the remains of the submarine were found, I held a ceremony with myself, and I realized that for me, things had come full circle. I did not need that national recognition anymore.”

“The world really does remember”

This week in London, it seemed as though the British representatives of the IOC did not enjoy the criticism leveled by the families and by the representatives of the Israeli media, to put it mildly. The members of the IOC found the international support from figures such as U.S. President Barack Obama less than pleasant, but because the IOC is an independent organization, it seems that the pressure had no real effect.

“I don’t understand the families,” Gilady says. “Do they truly think that if it were possible to hold a minute of silence, Alex would object? Our power in the world has limits, and not only as a state. Alex and anyone who can help are making efforts, but some things are too big even for us.”

Alex Gilady and the members of the Olympic Committee of Israel recommend that the families continue demanding a minute of silence, but their recommendation is not enough. The representatives of the Arab countries have more power on the IOC than a few European organizations, and certainly more than Israel does in the sports world. Israel Hayom has learned that over the past several years, a breakthrough was made in the issue, but it is likely that at the same time the Palestinians would receive a minute of silence of their own to commemorate their victims in the struggle with Israel. Such a proposal would only complicate matters.

One way or the other, Gilady says that people must look at reality with open eyes. “I think that the victims of Munich are being commemorated,” she says. “The world remembers, the Israelis remember, the story has not vanished from the headlines and never will. We saw how busy the British were with security for the Games; after all, since Munich, security has only increased."

“I hope that Ilana and the families who are dealing with the commemoration issue will find a way. I hope that one day it will happen,” she says. “But as someone who was in Ilana’s situation, I ask only that she also think about the day after, about what will happen after the campaign ends and the demand for the minute of silence is accepted. Will the families then find the peace they need to get over the terrible disaster, and be able to get on with their lives-”

Ilana Romano: “A conflict of interest”

Ilana Romano responds: “After the massacre, I had a very good relationship with the Gilady family. Alex introduced me to Hava, who had been widowed in the Dakar disaster, to help me understand the situation that I had fallen into. Even after they divorced, we remained good friends."

“However, I am very angry with Alex and his responses to the matter of the minute of silence precisely because of the friendship we had. Alex told me many times: ‘You do your work and I will do mine.’ Our interests are opposed. He serves the interests of the IOC, while I represent the interests of the families of the eleven murdered athletes. We were close friends, and he forgot where he came from. That upsets me.”

Regarding the statements of Hava Gilady that the struggle for the minute of silence began only when Alex got his position on the IOC, Romano says, “That’s not true, and Hava is not aware of the details. Back in 1976, when Alex was still a journalist, several widows attended the games in Montreal and asked for a minute of silence.”

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