A Counter-Olympics that Challenged Tyranny:
Labor's Response to the 1936 Nazi Olympics in Berlin
by Arieh Lebowitz - August 4, 2024
Lately I've been thinking of two books, with political lessons for today: Timothy Ryback’s Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power (2024), which “sets out to show how the Nazi leader came to power in a functioning democracy, enabled by rivals and fair-weather allies who either underestimated him or thought they could `tame’ him once he took office,” as Andrew Silow-Carrol notes in his review, “A historian describes the lessons learned — and ignored — from Hitler’s rise to power” (JTA, July 31, 2024). Also Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, which came out in early 2017, exploring the threats posed by the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and suggesting how we can look back to the 20th century for lessons on how to overcome them. NPR's Robert Siegel talked with Snyder in “'On Tyranny' Explores New Threats Facing American Political System.”
But right now, I’m thinking about the Olympics. Not the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, but rather the 1936 World Labor Athletic Carnival, held on August 15th and 16th at New York’s Randall’s Island, to protest the holding of the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. The two-day event, organized by the recently-formed Jewish Labor Committee with the active support and cooperation of a number of unions and other labor bodies, brought together over 400 athletes from across the United States to compete in what became known as the “Counter-Olympics.”
Honorary co-chairs of the event included New York Governor Herbert Lehman, NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, American Federation of Labor President William Green and Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, former President of the Amateur Athletics Union of the United States and a leader of the “Move the Olympics” movement, who resigned from the American Olympic Committee to protest the selection of Berlin as the 1936 Olympics site. Chairing the Labor Committee of the Carnival was Isidore Nagler, Vice President of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.
The story of this little-known episode in both labor and Jewish history begins in late 1934, when the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC), founded earlier in the year, learned about plans to hold the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The JLC, headed by leaders of a number of New York-based unions and labor-oriented Jewish organizations, made every effort to alert the world to the dangers posed by the Nazis and their allies.
Early in 1935, founding President of the JLC, Baruch Charney (B. C.) Vladeck was invited to join the “Move the Olympics” campaign. Soon thereafter, JLC Executive Secretary Isaiah Minkoff and Vladeck began organizing a massive anti-Nazi event. It would be a “Counter Olympics,” held at the newly-opened Municipal Stadium on Randall’s Island in New York while the Berlin Olympics were taking place.. It brought together amateur athletes from various sectors in the United States and abroad: students, club members, union-sponsored teams, and others. The event gained the imprimatur of the Amateur Athletic Union, the highest body certifying such competitions.
About 18,000 fans saw 400 participating athletes, including George Vargott, the world record holder in the pole vault. Dubbed the “Jumping Janitor,” Vargott vaulted 14 feet, 4.5 inches, more than one-and-a-half inches better than the best vault at the Berlin Olympics. Also present was Henry ("Hank") Cieman. the world champion race-walker from Canada who had refused to go to Berlin; Eulace Peacock, the Temple University sprinter and high jumper who had defeated Jesse Owens two months earlier; Eddie Gordon, the gold medal winner in the broad jump at the I932 Olympics in Los Angeles; Walter Marty, a former record-holder in the high jump; Charles Beetham, the AAU 800 meter champion; and James (“Ham”) Hucker, the then-current AAU 200 meter hurdles champion.
This anti-Nazi protest was widely covered in the general, labor and Jewish press of the time. The event was so successful that another one was held the following year. The August 1937 meet included six members of the I936 American Olympic squad, three of whom had won medals. Elroy Robinson of San Francisco broke the world’s record in the half-mile event. The games also included three events reserved for athletes with disabilities. Although the second Athletic Carnival had less direct connection with the anti-Berlin Olympics protests of 1936, it gave the JLC and its allies another headline-making opportunity to speak out against Nazi tyranny.
The World Labor Athletic Carnival was a unique publicity vehicle to support those around the world who actively opposed holding the 1936 Olympics in Berlin because it lent prestige and legitimacy to Hitler and his regime. At the same time, it gave visibility to the Jewish Labor Committee and other groups and individuals active in the anti-Nazi struggle.
But despite the strenuous efforts of antifascist groups and movements like the JLC in the 1930s, the Nazis' attempted genocide of the Jewish people and domination over much of Europe were averted only by the combined efforts of many countries, and at the cost of a devastating World War. Today, when our democracy is under serious threat, xenophobia and toxic nationalism are rampant in many parts of the world, regional wars threaten to ignite wider conflicts, the JLC remains steadfast in its commitments, not only to workers rights and a free labor movement, but in support of peace and human rights around the world. Our challenge today, as in the 1930s, is to equip more and more people to understand where and how threats are looming - which is why I started with those two suggested reads - before they explode in tomorrow's headlines.
