Not one but two Palestinians of the Black September terror group are still alive 50 years after the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics, which killed 11 Israeli athletes. This is apparent from research by journalists Twan Huys and Evert-Jan Offringa who for KRO-NCRV documentary made about Ankie Rechess, the widow of the murdered fencer Andre Spitzer.
The man suspected to have been killed in an Israeli retaliation, Mohammed al-Safady, is hiding from Israel’s secret service, according to two Palestinians, a cousin and a high-ranking official, currently in Lebanon. The other survivor, Jamal al-Gashey, lives in hiding elsewhere.
Al-Safady killed five Israelis, including fencer Spitzer, in a failed liberation campaign at Munich airport, according to archives in Munich, which his widow was finally allowed to see nearly half a century after her husband’s murder. “Looking back now, it’s surreal that I had to search for those answers for fifty years,” Rechess says in the documentary.
Ankie, the Olympic widow will premiere next Thursday and will be televised in two episodes next Sunday and Monday. Monday 5 September it will be exactly fifty years since the Munich massacre.
Also read: The hostage situation, death and destruction at the 1972 Games meticulously reconstructed
Rechess, who works as a correspondent in Israel for the NOS and the VRT, is happy with the film, she says in a response. “It has been made extremely difficult for us as relatives by the Bavarian and German governments. This documentary has taught me things that I would never have found out otherwise.”
Hostage
Eight Palestinians from the Black September terror group forced their way into the Olympic village at the Munich Games. There they took 11 Israeli athletes and officials hostage. Black September demanded the release of 234 Palestinian prisoners in Israel and members of the German terrorist group Rote Armee Faction.
During the hostage crisis and subsequent escape attempt, all 11 Israelis were killed. Five members of Black September were shot dead by the German police. The other three were arrested but released a month later, “in exchange” for an end to the hostage-taking of a Lufthansa plane. The Israeli secret service would later have liquidated two of the three, the official read was. As it turns out, two are still alive.