Germany, home to the world's fast-growing Jewish population, is full of pride that the country responsible for the Holocaust in which six million Jews were killed will host the 10-day "Jewish Olympics", with participants from 36 nations in 19 disciplines from athletics to basketball, football and squash.
"I think it's great that the Jewish community in Germany is growing and Jewish life has become so vibrant here again," Heiko Maas, Germany's justice minister, said ahead of the opening ceremony for the Games that will be held in the Olympic Stadium and sports complex and run until August 5.
"It's not something we could possibly have ever hoped for after World War Two and the Holocaust. I see this as a stroke of good fortune and gift for our country that we didn't deserve," added Maas, an amateur triathlete himself who will have honorary oversight on behalf of the government for that competition. The European Maccabi Games are the European championships for Jewish athletes held every four years in different cities, two years after the quadrennial Maccabiah Games in Israel.
The Maccabi Games were established in 1929 in Prague as Jews wanted an alternative competition free of discrimination and anti-Jewish sentiment. The last Games were in 2011 in Vienna. Participants need at least one Jewish parent or grandparent.
Then: a runner carries the Olympic flame into the centre of a Berlin firmly in the grip of National Socialism. It was a controversial decision to award the Games to Germany, with younger members of the movement prevailing against older members who opposed it, Alon Meyer, president of Maccabi Germany, said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/berlin-hosting-jewish-olympics-in-stadium-hitler-built-20150728-gimklb.html#ixzz3hHg9rz7T
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