Twelve Months—Twelve Names

November: YAKOV SPRINGER

The 50^th anniversary of the terrorist attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich falls in 2022. To commemorate the twelve people killed, institutions in Munich and Fürstenfeldbruck are remembering a different victim, his life and fate, each month throughout the year.

In November, the Münchner Stadtmuseum remembers Yakov Springer with an exhibition module and accompanying events.

Yakov Springer was born in 1921 in Kalisz, Poland. At the age of 18, he managed to escape to the Soviet Union from the Kalisz ghetto. After the war, he returned to Poland and began his career as an athlete and coach at the Sports Academy and the Polish Ministry of Sport. Springer emigrated to Israel with his family in 1957 where he established weightlifting as a discipline and ultimately worked as a coach and international judge. In 1972 he traveled to Munich with the Israeli delegation as a weightlifting judge. These were already his third Olympic Games. Yakov Springer, a survivor of the Holocaust, was murdered by Palestinian terrorists from the “Black September” organization on Fürstenfeldbruck airfield on September 6, 1972.

The module at the Münchner Stadtmuseum is included in the exhibition “Munich 72. Fashion, People and Music” (July 29, 2022–January 8, 2023).

Further information and dates for the accompanying program of events are available on the project website: muenchen72.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de

Commemoration project:
Twelve Months—Twelve Names
50 Years Olympic Massacre Munich

50 years after the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, the victims of the Munich Massacre are being commemorated throughout 2022. One month is dedicated to each of the victims who are remembered in a variety of ways. These commemorative initiatives are being held in different venues and realized by a number of cultural and educational institutions, such as the Historischer Verein Fürstenfeldbruck e.V., the Deutsches Theater, the Munich Police Headquarters, and other cooperation partners. The spectrum varies from art installations to commemorative tournaments and school class projects.

This commemoration project has been conceived and coordinated by the Jewish Museum Munich in conjunction with the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism and the Consulate General of the State of Israel.

The Jewish Museum Munich is also accompanying the commemoration project on its blog and its social media channels under the hashtag #MunichMassacre72.