Remembering The Munich Massacre

Monday, September 5, and Tuesday, September 6, will mark 50 years after 11 members of Israel's Olympic team were killed in what is known as the Munich massacre in history.

The tragedy occured during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany.

Eight members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took nine members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage, after killing two Israeli athletes.

The Israeli hostages were later killed in a tragic firefight between German sharpshooters and the terrorists at Munich airport.

IMAGE: An armed police officer maintains surveillance in the athletes village, September 5, 1972. Photograph: McCabe/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

IMAGE: Police officers and German officials negotiate with the Palestinian terrorists for the release of the Israeli hostages, September 5, 1972. Photograph: David Cairns/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

IMAGE: Photographers gather after the Munich massacre. Photograph: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

IMAGE: Grieving relatives wait to receive the coffins of the murdered athletes at the international airport at Lod, near Tel Aviv, September 7, 1972. Photograph: David Eldan/GPO via Getty Images

IMAGE: Muhammad Daoud Audeh aka Abu Daoud, the Palestinian terrorist who said he masterminded the deadly assault on Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972, speaks to reporters outside the Palestinian embassy in Amman, Jordan. Photograph: Ali Jarekji/Reuters

IMAGE: Ilana Romano, wife of Israeli weightlifter Yosef Romano, one of the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics, looks at the last photographs taken of him during the Games as she glances through a memorial photo album at her apartment in Tel Aviv, January 24, 2006. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images

IMAGE: Right: Israeli wrestling coach Moshe Weinberg, who died in the Munich Massacre.
Left: Israeli weightlifter Joseph Romano, another victim of the Munich Massacre. Photograph: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

IMAGE: Michael Haymen signs a visitors book at Moriah College in Sydney where pictures of the 11 murdered Israeli athletes were on show for the unveiling of a monument in their memory.
The Basalt vocanic rock from the Galilee is in the form of an extinguished Olympic flame symbolising the fact the Olympics torch will never burn again for the 11 athletes. Photograph: Mark Baker/Reuters

IMAGE: Israeli athlete Alex Porkhomovsky, second from left, lights one of eleven candles on the monument unveiled in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes at a dedication ceremony in Sydney. Photograph: Mark Baker/Reuters

IMAGE: Relatives of the victims light candles at the German air force base in Fuerstenfeldbruck, September 5, 2012.
The air force base was the site of the denouement of the Munich Massacre.
Nine Israeli hostages and eight Black September terrorists were killed in a failed police raid after they were flown to the base from the Olympic Village via helicopter. Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

IMAGE: Herbert Krause, former general secretary of the 1972 German Olympic Commitee, walks by a memorial site in the Olympic Village in Munich.
The memorial was put up to honour the victims of the 1972 Olympic terrorist attack. Photograph: Ralf Stockhoff/Reuters

IMAGE: Ilana Romano, centre, widow of Israeli weightlifter Joseph Romano, Ankie Spitzer, left, widow of the Israeli fencing coach Andre Spitzer, and Rabbi Itzchak Ehrenberg at the Munich Olympic village during a commemoration to remember the attack in Munich, September 5, 1997. Photograph: Michael Dalder/Reuters

IMAGE: Israeli windsurfer Shahar Tzuberi, who represented Israel at the 2016 Rio Olympics, lays a wreath during a memorial ceremony for the 11 Israeli team members in Tel Aviv, July 13, 2016. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters

IMAGE: A stone cutter renovates a memorial stone for the athletes at the site of the hostage-taking at the former Olympic Village in Munich, August 18, 2022. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters