The German Athletics Federation (DLV) recognized on Monday a women’s high jump record dating back to 1936 after the Nazi party had refused to accept it because the athlete, Gretel Bergmann, was a Jew.
Two weeks after her leap on June 30, 1936, records of the 1.6m she jumped in Stuttgart, Germany, were all but obliterated and she was kicked off the team.
She would miss that year’s Berlin Olympics.
The DLV said in a statement that it would restore the mark, calling the decision an “act of justice and a symbolic gesture” while acknowledging it “can in no way make up” for the past. It also requested that she be included in Germany’s sports hall of fame.
This was all a pleasant surprise for the 95-year-old Bergmann — a victory for the strong-willed woman who later changed her name to Margaret Lambert after emigrating to the US in 1937.
“That’s very nice and I appreciate it. I couldn’t repeat the jump today. Believe me,” said Lambert, who lives in the New York City borough of Queens with her 99-year-old husband.
Lambert said she was on the German national team from 1934 to 1936 but had gone to England at the age of 19 in search of schooling. She won the 1934 British High Jump Championships and had hoped to compete for Britain. But the Nazis learned of her success.
She said they forced her to jump for Germany, threatening her family even though Lambert figured the Nazis would never let her take part in the Olympics. It was a political stunt meant to appease the Americans.
She said she found the Jews living in horrible conditions upon her return to Germany.
“Jews were not allowed in restaurants, in movies, in whatever,” she told the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. “And even though I was a member of the German Olympic women’s team, I was not allowed in a stadium. I couldn’t practice.”
Lambert said the treatment of the Jews angered her and made her compete harder.
“The madder I got the better I did,” she recalled.
Lambert said she was initially unaware that her record was stripped because she was trying to carve out a new life in the US.
“I didn’t even know about it,” she said. “I was so busy trying to survive over here.”
Lambert, who has been married for 71 years, made a living earning US$10 a week as a cleaning woman and then a physical therapist. She gave up working to raise two sons.
She still has pictures, medals and other memorabilia from her days as a star athlete, noting that she also competed in shot put.
Lambert said she lost many relatives in the Holocaust, including her mother-in-law and brother-in-law. She has gone back to visit Germany, though reluctantly.
“I went back twice, even though I swore I’d never touch German soil again. I decided I shouldn’t blame the younger German generation for what their fathers and grandfathers did,” she said.
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