The train station is busy. It's a sea of duffel and roller bags, with parents tending to small children beneath a bright late- summer Sunday sun. When the high-speed train arrives, it's time to go back to your home.
The train will stop in the town. It will take five and a half hours to travel from the south to the north. Simple as that, point A to point B.
It's more than just a train ride for one person. Shaul Ladany's entire 86 years of life is encompassed by it. There is symmetry for Ladany on this day.
The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp north of Celle was where much of his personality was created. The 1972 Summer Olympics are where Ladany's story ends.
Ladany could be stepping away from a crowd. They don't know that he has gone through the worst of humanity. They don't know how many times he's escaped death.
They have no idea how much Ladany has survived.
The longer the distance, the more Ladany likes it. In the 1960's and 70's, he set records. Did you mean the 47-miler from London toBrighton? He won it for the third year in a row. The United States record for 50 miles was set in 1966. He won the world championship in the 100 kilometer race in 1972 after breaking the world record in the previous year.
Ladany discovered his gift for endurance and pain after serving in the Israeli army. In the early days of Israel, army marches were broadcast on radio and followed closely by the public. The cross-country races were the same as the training exercises.
Ladany says he was the king of the marches because he was so fast.
He walked more than 20 miles a day in order to improve. The sight of Ladany pacing the country's roads was familiar to a generation of Israelis.
He moved to Manhattan in the 1960's to study business administration. He had become acquainted with world-class racewalkers who would elevate his game. Ladany wasn't interested in the training as much as he was interested in the end.
He spent hours in the city's parks, on its streets and thinking about his thesis. He went on to become a professor in Israel after graduating with a PhD. He needed to walk but his work mattered to him.
Still, he does.
The question of luck always comes up with Shulal Ladany. Is he fortunate to be here? Is it lucky to have been forced to endure so much?
He thinks of himself as fortunate.
Ladany says you didn't need a single lucky event to survive. You needed a lot of luck. Thankfully for me, I had them.
He was the first child to need luck to survive. He was in the basement laundry room of his family's home in Yugoslavia when the German bomb went off. Several people were killed when it exploded in the basement.
The house was shaking when Shaul was a young boy. My mom fell on me to keep me safe. My grandmother was in the laundry room when the door fell on her. She didn't really have anything happen to her.
The war began for Yugoslavia on that day. The war in Europe began after Germany invaded Poland and 10 months after the fall of France. The Yugoslavias were targeted because of their resistance to fascists. The Germans referred to the bombing of Belgrade as "operation retribution".
There was more to worry about for Shaul's family.
The German invaders began rounding up Jews. The Ladanys had to make a decision on whether to remain in Yugoslavia. Is it possible to escape to Hungary?
Hungary was a safe place. The Third Reich was an ally of the Jewish people. Hungary was an enemy state. German bombs didn't fall on Hungary. Shaul's parents and grandparents were born and raised in Hungary, which is part of the Habsburg empire. They spoke the language of Hungary.
They fled Yugoslavia and found a way out over the river.
The Ladanys lived in Ujvidek for two months. The family of Shaul's mother was from Ujvidek. They sought anonymity in Hungary in the late 1940's.
Shaul says that his mother cried and cried for days at the end of January42. They brought us two kids, one of my age and a baby.
Shaul's mother was upset because her sisters had been killed. Over 3000 people were killed by Hungarian soldiers in a three day rampage. Shaul's first cousins were hidden when their parents were killed in the war. Evi was placed with relatives in Hungary while Martha was raised by the Ladanys.
The life for the Ladanys in Hungary was not bad. Shaul went to school after his father found a job. Shaul's father could be sent to the Eastern Front if he were forced into compulsory labor service. He was taken to an assembly area twice but his employer came to his rescue.
He was needed for the war effort of Hungary. They let him go. It's luck after luck.
Deborah Lipstadt is the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. Jews were mistreated in labor camps.
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were doomed in 1944 when Hungary was occupied by Germany. The architect of the Final Solution arrived in Hungary in March of that year.
Ladany said that the officers came to their apartment. You have two days to get to the ghetto.
In just a few weeks, 425,000 Jews were crowded into trains and sent to the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz. When the war in Europe ended, just over 25% of the 755,000 Jews estimated to have been in Hungary were still alive.
Shaul's maternal grandparents died.
In the summer of 1944, Shaul and his family moved again.
The WartimeACTIVITIES of Israel Kastner are not easy to do justice to. When it comes to Shaul Ladany's life, the most important thing is that he was spared from the gas chambers at Auschwitz because of a deal he made with the Nazis. They were able to leave Hungary by train. They were joined by the Ladanys. Shaul's father had a history of activism.
The train left Hungary. Portugal or Palestine were seen as neutral countries by most aboard thought freedom. After nine days, the train stopped near Celle at a camp called Bergen-Belsen, where they would stay while Kastner finalized his deal.
German neglect and brutality resulted in the deaths of 50,000 people at Bergen-Belsen. The place where Anne Frank died is here. Most of the camp was burned to the ground when it was liberated in 1945. Thousands of people died in the days and weeks after the camp was liberated because they were too sick to survive.
The camp wasn't what it was when the train arrived. There was a better chance of survival despite the horrible conditions.
Shaul was just 8 years old when he remembers constant hunger and cold.
Between barbed wire and electric fences, tomato plants start to grow, one of which is a light green bulb that is just out of reach.
Ladany's father told his wife that he loved tomatoes. He needs to make sure he has tomatoes.
Shaul's mother shared a meager amount of food. Martha came down with a disease. The Ladanys were still hopeful that they'd be freed.
The deal between Kastner and the Nazis was finalized in December of 1944. The Ladanys were part of a group of 1,400 who boarded an actual passenger train and left Bergen-Belsen to go to Switzerland.
They had managed to survive.
Ladany says that it made him a better person for the rest of his life. Difficult times and pain are what you need to succeed in sports. It was mine. I didn't want the chance that others control my life.
Shaul lives in a small house in the north of the Negev desert, an hour and a half from Tel Aviv. He has been a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for over thirty years. His wife of 58 years passed away in 2019. Their only child is a police officer. She has two daughters and a son with her husband.
Shaul isn't prone to displays of emotion. He loves Shoshanna when he talks about it. She accepted his mania for race walking. She was fond of walking, but not as much as frenetically.
There are thousands of trophies and ribbons on display and Shaul's collection of historical artifacts in the house they shared. He loves to hunt at flea markets.
Just before the birth of the state of Israel, he collected most of his collection. After Israel was created, Shaul and his family came to the country. His parents wanted to leave Yugoslavia after the war.
"They were fed up with Europe," Ladany says now, sitting at a picnic table on the beach in Tel Aviv, about 60 miles south of Haifa, where he and his family came ashore in 1948.
Like many other survivors, the Ladanys started over. In the next 25 years, Shaul would serve in Israel's wars. He went back to Israel from the US to join the fight. All the time, race walking.
Shaul qualified for the Olympics. He walked for 50 kilometers and finished in 24th place. He wasn't at his best yet. He was considered a medal contender by the time the games were around.
Shaul was aware of the significance of returning to Germany as an Olympian after walking out of Bergen-Belsen.
Ladany said he was proud to go to Munich. The Third Reich wanted to destroy us. It is possible for us to compete at the same level as the rest of the world. I was very happy when Shaul Ladany was mentioned in a headline.
There is a city in Germany calledMunich. The birth place of the Nazis. The Games of the Twentieth Olympiad were to be held in the city where the seeds of the Holocaust were sown. What's the reason? The West Germans wanted to show a nation that wasn't committed to aggression but was instead a family of men. The games were called the Happy Olympics and the Cheerful Olympics. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin, which took place three years after Hitler came to power, were intended to be different.
Ladany was older than most of his teammates and had experience that they had not.
Ladany said that he was the only survivor who spoke German.
The Israeli team was compelled to attend a ceremony at the Dachau concentration camp by the Israeli Olympic Committee. The committee said Ladany needed to go.
Ladany stood at the gate of Dachau. It was the first time I was near a concentration camp in a long time. I did not take part in the ceremony.
The security of the world was sacrificed by the West Germans. They wanted something different than 1936.
Shlomo Levy was attached to the Israeli team and worked for the organizing committee. The early days of the games were pure joy for everyone.
The first 10 days were like this, with everyone able to do what they wanted. We didn't think about security at all. What are you talking about?
During the first few days of the Games, there were some great performances, especially in the Olympic pool from Mark Spitz. There were only two gold medals for Spitz in Mexico City. He wanted to win seven. He went 7-for-7, setting seven world records.
The 50-kilometer walk began and ended at the Olympic stadium eight days after the opening ceremony. He would have a hard time.
Ladany had a plan to walk the first 10 kilometers at five minutes per kilometer. I was better off than my Israeli record for five kilometers when I reached five kilometers.
He thought it was too quickly. The speed should be reduced
Ladany finished in 19th place with a time of four hours, 24 minutes and 38 seconds.
He said he was disappointed.
Not defeated. Ladany believed that the games would continue and he would enjoy himself. Most of the Israeli team attended a performance of "Fiddler on the Roof" the day after Ladany's race. The role of Tevye was originated by Zero Mostel on Broadway and was played by Shmuel Rodensky. There is a picture of Rodensky and the athletes smiling.
Many of us there didn't know about that photograph. Ladany said so. This is the last picture they took.
The Israelis returned to their apartments in the village around midnight. The team was staying in a two-story building on the street named after Harold Connolly. There were two referees in Apartment 1. Two fencers, two target shooters, and a swimmer who wasn't competing but unofficially coaching, were in Ladany's apartment. Wrestlers and weightlifters lived in apartment 3. Team officials and medical personnel were in Apartment 4 while Shmuel Lalkin was in Apartment 5. Levy was in the apartment. Israel's two Olympic sailors were hundreds of miles away in the Baltic Sea while the two women on the team were in the village.
Ladany went to apartment 1 to lend his alarm clock to the wrestling coach who had to get up early. Ladany kept his newspaper clippings for his book.
What did Black September want? The plan was to take hostages and trade them for 234 prisoners in Israel, as well as the left-wing terrorists who were imprisoned in Germany, according to a report. There was a propaganda goal to their mission as well.
They wanted to remind the world of the plight of the Palestinians.
They were armed with AK-47s and hand grenades when they entered the village around 4:30 a.m.
After entering Apartment 1 they went to Apartment 3. They skipped over Ladany's apartment. They killed Weinberg and wounded Yossef. The wrestlers were moved from apartment 3 to apartment 1 but one of them escaped. Nine hostages were taken by the terrorists, along with the men they had killed. The hostages were a fencing coach, a track coach, a shooting coach, a wrestling referee, and a weightlifter.
One of the marksmen, Zelig Shtorch, was woken by the commotion.
Shtorch says that something heavy disturbed his sleep and he sat up in bed. The other Israeli Olympic marksman stood by the window. He looked out and was silent. I wanted to know if something was wrong. He asked if you heard gunshots.
Shtorch went around outside. He saw a man with a gun and grenade at the door of Apartment 1 who wasn't a coach or ref. Shtorch woke Ladany with a tap on the shoulder after he saw blood outside the door.
Ladany says that the man said that the Arabs killed Mooney.
A terrorist in a heated conversation with four German security guards begged them to allow wounded hostages to be treated as Ladany opened the door of their apartment.
Ladany says that he did not answer in what language he remembered. She wanted to convince him that he should be treated fairly. He said that Jews are not humane. I learned later that he was the leader of the group.
Ladany went to the bathroom after closing the door. He wasn't tense. The people in Apartment 2 decided it was time to go. Ladany and Shtorch were the last two to stay. The head of the delegation, Ladany, walked out of the apartment and along the exterior wall of the building. Ladany remembers that he was also calm. Shmuel Lalkin was making phone calls to people who needed to know what was going on. They were only 30 feet from the apartment where their teammates were being held captive.
Ladany and Lalkin walked away. Shtorch didn't want to shoot at the terrorists.
Shtortch said for 50 years. I have been pondering how it could have gone down.
Over the course of the next 18 hours, what will happen has been told in many different ways. If their demands were not met, the terrorists would kill all the hostages. There were deadlines and no executions.
German officials tried to get the hostages released. The Olympics went on despite the murders of two men in the village. The action was stopped late in the day. Ladany spent most of the day in the headquarters of the Olympic Village, confident that a deal would be made to free his teammates.
A deal was made early in the evening. The Germans were going to give a plane to the terrorists so they could take their hostages to Cairo. Everyone would be taken to the nearby air base where the plane would wait. They were going to the air base in two choppers.
Ladany could see his teammates boarding the helicopter.
We didn't know if the Israelis were part of a rescue plan. The hostages were taken by the terrorists and the helicopter flew away. We did not know what was going to happen.
The helicopter made the 20-mile trip and arrived at the airport just before 11 pm. Reports said that the Germans had saved the hostages. The morning edition of the Jerusalem Post made that statement.
Ladany got a line to his wife at midnight. All the hostages were reported to be safe around that time. We were thrilled. We embraced each other and fell asleep.
The reports weren't correct. The hostages were dead even though they weren't rescued.
The details have been argued over for 50 years. There have been accusations. The control tower at the air base and another team of police officers were placed on the airplane because the German government didn't want the terrorists to take hostages.
The fight broke out. Terrorists killed the hostages and blew up the helicopter with a grenade. The police officer they killed was from Germany. Three terrorists were captured.
Jim McKay, who was anchoring the coverage from the Olympic Village, delivered the news to his American audience in the early hours of the morning.
McKay's father used to say, "Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are rarely realized." Our worst fears have come true. Two of the hostages were killed in their rooms yesterday. At the airport, nine people were killed. They've all left.
He thought his teammates had been saved. Within a few hours, he and the other survivors would discover the truth.
Ladany remembers some of the people crying. I don't cry." I apologize.
Shaul isn't proud of it. He didn't cry when Shoshanna passed away. He talks about how bad her death was.
Shaul doesn't think he could cry in the Holocaust.
I don't let the sadness go to my inside.
Shmuel Lalkin spoke to the crowd at the memorial ceremony about the barbarous attack against our sportsmen who were murdered. The names of the people who were killed were read aloud by him. People stood in silence.
The president of the IOC from 1952 to 1972 said "we mourn our Israeli friends" and compared the attack to political pressure from Black African athletes to ban white supremacist Rhodesia from the competition. The Games must continue, he said.
The Israelis survivors returned to their apartments at 31 Connollystrasse and were ready to return to their homes. Berger's casket was flown back to Ohio after being flown to Israel.
The decision was not controversial. One person objected.
Leaving was the wrong decision according to Ladany.
The Israeli flag should be paraded at the closing ceremony.
Leaving gave satisfaction to the terrorists. His contempt for the decision hasn't changed.
He says he never retreats.
Ladany was in Switzerland a few weeks after returning to Israel from the Olympics. He walked in the 100 kilometer race.
He got the win.
Shaul is at Bergen-Belsen on the 4th of September, 2022. The 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp was supposed to take place in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer of mourning, is said for those who were killed here, and survivors and their families come together to say it. Shaul wants it to be his last visit to Bergen-Belsen. Now that he has taken both of his granddaughters on separate trips, he wants to bring his grandson as well.
All of them should know what their family went through here.
On the train, Ladany looks out the window at the rolling countryside, where tragedy thrust him more than once.
He says he's not an emotional person. I want to keep the memory of the victims alive.
According to Ladany, he has walked 450,000 miles since April 2, 1936. He used to walk in kilometers on his birthday. He walked half his years to celebrate after reluctantly cutting back at the age of 80. A little more than a marathon was the distance this spring.
He takes a day off every so often.
It's not bad if I don't walk. Is the second day the same as the first? He says he feels bad in his legs. The body knows how to walk. People walk with me along the route. If I have to, I like to know where I am at all times.
He wondered what he could do. I enjoy walking.
The presidents of Israel and Germany spoke at Furstenfeldbruck the day after our train ride. The widow of the fencing coach who was killed here 50 years ago spoke as well. The blazer Shaul wore in 1972 is the same one he wears today. It continues to fit.
Shtorch is here as well. Ladany is walking quicker than everyone else.
Shaul's every move has been an act of devotion and defiance.
He said that you couldn't kill all of us. I'm here.
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