Judith German

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Memorial plaque in Ramat Gan

Judith Deutsch-Haspel (born on August 18, 1918 in Vienna , Austria ; died on November 20, 2004 in Herzliya , Israel ) was one of the most famous swimmers of the Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna .

Life

Judith Deutsch was Austrian champion in freestyle over 400 meters at the age of 15 and was the Austrian record holder for all short, medium and long distances for a long time in the 1930s. In 1935 she was voted Austrian Sportswoman of the Year after setting 12 best times. In 1936 she received the Gold Medal of Honor as one of the three most outstanding Austrian sports personalities.

In 1936, eight Jewish athletes were called up to join the Austrian Olympic squad by the ÖOC . In addition to Judith Deutsch, these were the Hakoah swimmers Lucie Goldner and Ruth Langer , the weightlifter Robert Fein , the wrestler Erich Fincsus and the athletes König, Gottlieb and Neumann. In protest against the Nazi racial ideology , all but Fein and König refused to take part in the Olympic Games in Germany . This was allowed according to the statutes of the IOC as well as according to the guidelines of the ÖOC. While Robert Fein won a gold medal in Berlin , the swimmers Deutsch, Goldner and Langer were banned for life by the Austrian Swimming Association and all national titles were revoked. Only after massive international protests was the ban reduced to two years, but the deletion of their names from the list of best performances remained. A rehabilitation took place in 1995 to mark the 100th anniversary of the Austrian Swimming Federation (VOS).

Judith Deutsch emigrated to Palestine in 1936 . She and her family settled in Haifa , which at the time had the only swimming pool in Palestine with Olympic dimensions. Judith Deutsch became a champion and represented the Hebrew University at the World University Games in 1939 . One day after she won a medal, however, the Second World War began with the German invasion of Poland .

In 1995, Judith Deutsch-Haspel was invited to Austria by Otmar Brix, the President of the ÖSV, to enter her name again in the official book of Austrian swimming records. But she refused because she no longer wanted to return to Austria. However, she gladly accepted the official letter of apology brought by an Austrian delegation, in which the sanctions were lifted and their titles, medals and records were re-awarded.

Judith Deutsch was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame as the representative of those athletes who could have participated in the 1936 Olympic competitions in Berlin but preferred to boycott the games. In 2004 the story of the Hakoah Vienna swimmer team was filmed in the documentary Watermarks .

Judith Haspel died in Herzliya, Israel in 2004 at the age of 86.

Honor

In 2014 in Vienna- Leopoldstadt (2nd district) the newly built Judith-Deutsch-Steg for pedestrians and cyclists to cross the railway and Handelskai was named after her.

literature

  • Matthias Marschick: “We're not boycotting the Olympics, we're boycotting Berlin.” Three Jewish swimmers write history , in: Diethelm Blecking , Lorenz Peiffer (ed.) Athletes in the “Century of Camps”. Profiteers, resistors and victims. Göttingen: Die Werkstatt, 2012, pp. 188–193
  • Gerhard Botz (ed.): A destroyed culture: Jewish life and anti-Semitism in Vienna since the 19th century , Vienna: Czernin 2002

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bike, Radlobby ARGUS, 2015, issue 2.
personal data
SURNAME German, Judith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Deutsch-Haspel, Judith (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-Israeli swimmer
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1918
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria
DATE OF DEATH November 20, 2004
Place of death Herzliya , Israel