Andre Spitzer

Andre Spitzer (Hebrew: אנדרי שפיצר; 4 July 1945 – 6 September 1972) was an Israeli fencing master and coach of Israel's 1972 Summer Olympics team.[4][5][6] He served in the Israeli Air Force and attended Israel's National Sport Academy, where he studied fencing.[11][8] The Spitzers went to Munich with the rest of the Israeli team, but young Anouk was left in the Netherlands in the care of her grandparents.52–53) Midway through the Olympics, when the Israeli fencers had already competed, the Spitzers were summoned to the Netherlands – their daughter, who was with his wife's parents, had been hospitalized with an incessant bout of crying."[9] Spitzer was seen once during the hostage crisis, standing at a second-floor window in a white undershirt with his hands tied in front of him, talking to the German negotiators.[3] At one point, when Spitzer tried to give the negotiators information that the terrorists did not want the negotiators to have about the killing and castration of fellow Israeli hostage Yossef Romano, one of the terrorists clubbed Spitzer in the head with the butt of an AK-47 assault rifle and pulled him roughly away from the window, back into the room.[3] Instead, the Bavarian border patrol and Munich police attempted an ill-prepared rescue operation, though 15 minutes before the terrorists arrived 17 West German police officers who had been tasked with ambushing the terrorists, dressed as pilots and stewards, took a vote, decided to abort their mission, and left their ambush.[9] After a two-hour gunfight, Spitzer watched as four of his teammates were killed with machine guns, after which a grenade was detonated inside their helicopter.[18] In the immediate aftermath of the hijacking of as well as on a number of later occasions, concerns were voiced that the event might have been staged or at least tolerated by the West German government in order to "get rid of three murderers, which had become a security burden" (as Amnon Rubinstein wrote in Israeli newspaper Haaretz under the headline "Bonn's Disgrace" shortly after the prisoner release).[20][21][22][23] Spitzer was buried alongside teammates Amitzur Shapira, Kehat Shorr, Eliezer Halfin, and Mark Slavin at Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Israeli hostages Kehat Shorr (left) and Andre Spitzer (right) talk to German officials during the hostage crisis.
Graves of five of the victims of the Munich Massacre at Kiryat Shaul Cemetery
Widow of Andre Spitzer holds her daughter while lighting the torch during a memorial ceremony on Yud Alef Square (1974).
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