A controversial exhibit has opened in Vancouver, depicting the Canadian team at one of the most controversial Olympics ever — the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, staged by the German Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. -
The exhibit of photographs, documents and artifacts, which opened Thursday at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, shows how Hitler’s Third Reich turned the Games into a showcase for Nazi propaganda, and how Canadians became part of the spectacle.
-
"These games represent the first point of contact between Canada and Nazi Germany," exhibit curator Frieda Miller told CBC News Thursday.
-
Photos show swastikas and Nazi banners flying alongside the five iconic Olympic rings.
-
A display case features the sash worn by Canadian athletes during the opening and closing ceremonies, adorned with a black swastika.
-
"[The sash] does seem striking, especially since it was carried with the Canadian flag," said Miller.
-
Two other photographs stirred up controversy at the time, and still could today. One features Canadian athletes clamouring for Hitler's autograph; another shows members of Canada's team apparently giving a straight-armed Nazi salute.
-
But it was actually an Olympic Salute, according to Joan Langdon, a 13-year-old swimmer at the time, and one of the athletes from Canada's 1936 team who marched past Hitler at the opening ceremonies.  
-
"The Nazis' were this way," Langdon said holding her arm up in front of her.
-
"And we were this way," she said holding her arm up to the side, almost as if waving.
-
"I didn't realize the political aspect of it all," she said.
The exhibit runs until June 2010.