BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister is urging the International Olympic Committee to hold a minute’s silence at this summer’s London Games for the 11 Israeli team members killed after being taken hostage by Palestinian gunmen at the Munich Olympics 40 years ago.
Guido Westerwelle made the request in a letter to IOC President Jacques Rogge, dated June 26 and released on Monday.
He wrote that “a moment’s pause at a suitable point of the Olympic summer games in London, 40 years after Munich, would be a human gesture and a worthy signal that violence and terror have no place in the Olympic idea.”
During the 1972 Munich Games, eight members of the Black September militant group entered the Olympic Village and took Israeli team members hostage. A day later, all 11 were dead.
