International Olympics Committee: Games 'Mirror of Society'

"This exhibit tries to show ... this relationship between ideology, power and the Olympic Games."

"[The exhibit's purpose is to show the historical and political significance of the Olympics] through the life of big stars or champions like Alfred Nakashe, who was a Jew from Algeria competing in swimming and who was deported to Auschwitz [concentration camp during the Second World War. Nakashe competed with the French team in Berlin in 1936 and in the first postwar Summer Olympics in London in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust]."

"So the Olympic Games of Paris are a huge moment, because we will see if the peace values will be respected."

"We'll see if sports can be also a way of spreading universal democratic values."

Historian Paul Dietschy, Mirror of our Societies Exhibit, show curator

 

"The 1936 Games are emblematic with Jesse Owens' story, because he is both an immense champion who left his mark on the history of sport ... but also because of his personality, his career, his close ties to German champion Luz Long."

"Owens embodies this struggle to confront Hitler and the Nazi ideology ... But he himself was a victim of racism and segregation in the United States."

Historian Caroline Francois, show curator

Emmanuel Macron has said Russia will be asked to observe a ceasefire in Ukraine during the Games. Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA

 

History has shown the Olympics as an international forum of competitive sports excellence, but they have also been seen, and used as a powerful political stage used by totalitarian regimes as a tool for propaganda, while on the other hand, athletes themselves have used their presence on the world stage in competitive sports at its optimum level, as a driver of change against racial inequalities and injustice.

An exhibit is scheduled to be unveiled in Paris prior to this summer's Paris Olympics which intends to demonstrate through its focus on past events, that the games have been a 'mirror of society' reflecting issues at the fore in human relations, since the beginning of the 20th century. The exhibit is to be housed at the Shoah Memorial [Holocaust Memorial], located in central Paris, featuring photographs, documents and Olympic items, along with film archives from the past century.

Its opening date was March 29, and the exhibit will be available for viewing until mid-November. The 1936 infamous Berlin Olympics is highlighted as the tool it was for Nazi Germany for its bleak, black propaganda features. Also featured is the Mexico Olympics of 1968 where Tommie Smith and John Carlos -- Black sprinters -- raised their fists to protest racial injustice in the United States.

 

Two West German border police helicopters that carried armed terrorists and their nine Israeli Olympian hostages, stand at Fuerstenfeldbruck air force base, twenty miles west of Munich, Germany, on September 7, 1972. (AP Photo, File)

 

The scene of a brutal attack on eleven Israeli Olympic team members, murdered by Palestinian 'Black September' terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics serves as a haunting bookend to Hitler's 1936 Olympic event. Athletes who embody Olympic values like Jesse Owens, the American Black athlete who won four Olympic gold medals in Berlin -- to the Nazi Regime's extreme discomfort -- are featured as athletes who embody Olympic values.

The issue of Olympic stadiums transformed into internment camps during the Second World War is also addressed. In the wake of the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, the succeeding collaborationist Vichy government has its own place in the exhibition. Photographs of the Vel d'Hiv stadium outside of Paris, when French police ordered13,000 French Jews to assemble within the stadium that had been a venue for boxing, wrestling and weightlifting during the 1924 Paris Olympics.

 

The expectation is that at the Paris Olympics of 2024, international politics will again be on the agenda. Earlier this month the International Olympic Committee announced that Russian and Belarusian athletes will not be permitted to be part of the traditional parade in the French capital's opening ceremony. Both Russia and Belarus have been barred from team sports, reflecting Moscow's war on Ukraine.

 

Israel, on the other hand, faces no threat to its Olympic status, while in the throes of the Israel-Hamas Gaza war, explained IOC President Thomas Bach. "Since the heinous attack on the Israeli team [during the 1972 Munich Olympics], there were always special measures being taken with Israeli athletes."

From left to right, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler, Reichs Sports Leader Hans von Tschammer und Osten and General Field Marschall Werner von Blomberg observe the Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany in August 1936. (AP Photo, File)