Even now, 50 years on, Shlomit Nir can recall the sheer horror she felt as she watched the Munich Olympic terror attacks unfold.
It should have been the proudest moment of her swimming career as she competed as a 19-year-old in the greatest sporting event on earth.
Instead she was left terrified in the Olympic village as her fellow athletes were paraded by the Black September terror cell.
Two days later she stood weeping next to the coffins of 11 friends and athletes killed in one of the world’s most notorious terrorist incidents.
Nir found herself pictured on the front page of the Mirror as the aftermath of the attack by Palestinian gunmen on the Israeli olympic team reverberated around the world.
This week we tracked Nir down to her home in the Israeli seaside town of Netanya where the 68-year-old grandmother spoke of those terrible days in September 1972 when the terrorists carried out their threat and began killing hostages.
She said softly: “I remember my colleagues woke me up. They heard gunshots and a big commotion.
“I could see German shooters gathering on a hillside right opposite where our teammates were being held.
“To my horror, terrorists had pushed the body of one of our team-mates, Moshe Weinberg, out of the door.
“They were making massive demands, otherwise they would kill all the team-mates they were holding.
“I was just a young girl and even though I came from a country that had experienced a war when I was 14 I was not prepared for the shock.
“The Germans took us up some stairs to what they said was a safe room in case terrorists tried to snatch us two female team members.
“There were security personnel clambering on rooftops. I was expecting Israel would send a rescue team – after all, our country was prepared for war.
“Later on, I discovered Israel did offer but the Germans insisted they could handle things themselves.
“Instead they made a huge number of blunders, and it cost the lives of another nine of my teammates.”
Under the post war German constitution the army were not allowed to help the police and this led to critical errors.
Nir recalled the terror her family felt back in Israel as they desperately waited for news.
She said: “At first my parents heard the athletes were all alive but some time later the Germans corrected their first announcement.
“My parents must have been horrified not knowing if I was one of the dead before they announced the names.
“They then thought I could have survived but been seriously injured.
“It took me a day before I could get to a phone and call them.”
“They had already lost a son three years earlier. “My brother was a frogman killed in his boat after a successful destruction of an enemy torpedo boat in the Red Sea.”
Despite the tragedy the authorities controversially decided the Games must continue.
Nir recalled: “Just a day later we had this ceremony in the stadium. More than 1,000 athletes came to be with us.
“The big shock for me was that the Games went on as though nobody cares. What kind of world is that?
“But years later I thought they did the right thing.
“The terrorists tried to kill people at the Olympic Games where the theme is to be free and be together.
“We lined up alongside the coffins before we were flown on the same plane to Tel Aviv. It was terrible.”
Black September’s Operation Iqrit and Biram – named after two Arab villages captured by Israel in 1948 – led to the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes and a German policeman . Five terrorists were also killed.
Even now Nir, whose grandparents died in a Nazi concentration camp, is affected by the attack.
She said: “I had vivid nightmares and there is still some sort of scar in my psyche.
“That night one of our team’s athletes, Gad, was very fast and he ran away down the stairs into an underpass – and he came to safety and told us his story. Somehow it came into my mind so strong.
“I had one year of nightmares that I was running away from a terrorist who was right behind me, through the same underpass.”
Then she added softly: “Shall I tell you something? Even now I have a fear of going to park my car underneath our building.”
Nir revealed that a Briton called Terry Plotzky, from Liverpool, was her swimming inspiration.
He was her coach but wasn’t allowed to travel to Munich.
The decision almost certainly saved his life as he would have been in one of the rooms targeted by the gunmen
She said: “They sent me on my own, which was terrible. He felt so bad.
“But when I came home I said: “Listen, God loves you. “If he had been there he would probably be dead.”
Later Nir became determined to help promote peace and helped build a sports unit to promote understanding between Israeli and Arab girls. She said: “We do walking to- gether, dancing to- together to see we are all human.
“We develop catchball teams in Arab villages, more than 1,500 women play: Jewish and Arab. Some of the groups are mixed.
“Then we have special conversations, make food together, and do all sorts of activities. I feel I do a lot to change the society in Israel.
“Arab women especially say they have changed their views.
“Firstly they travel and know much more of the country. It’s lovely.
“They felt so secure they have started to find jobs – they had no jobs as many women in Arab society are expected by their husbands to stay home.”
Even now, 50 years on, Nir believes the future is good and she will never stop trying to promote peace.
“I see a bright future. I have three grandchildren and another on the way. I am very close to them and it makes me very happy.
“It feels so good to be alive – and after Munich I know I’m lucky I am alive.”
