Munich (dpa/lby) - On the day before the commemoration of the victims of the 1972 Olympic attack, Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) is expected to attend a panel discussion in the Jewish community center in Munich. The issue of internal security will also be discussed today, according to the announcement by the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria. In addition to the community president, Charlotte Knobloch, Shlomo Levy will also be there. He was an interpreter for the Israeli Olympic team, which a terrorist organization had attacked and taken hostage on September 5, 1972. Eleven athletes and coaches and a German policeman died.
Levy describes his memories in the documentary "It's Lucky I'm Alive", which will also be shown. The starting point for the discussion that follows is the book by journalists Roman Deininger and Uwe Ritzer about the 1972 attack.
On Monday, the dead will be remembered at the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield, where the hostage-taking ended in a bloodbath after around 18 hours. The surviving relatives of those killed will be among the guests, as will Itzchak Herzog, President of Israel. They only agreed after the victims' families had agreed with the federal government on further compensation payments. With the payment of 28 million euros, a decades-long dispute about appropriate recognition of the suffering they have suffered ends for the bereaved.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD), Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) and the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, also want to take part on Monday.
