25 November 2009 / AP, NEW YORK
Gretel Bergmann matched a German high jump record on June 30, 1936. Two weeks later, the 5 feet, 3 inches (1.6 meters) she jumped in Stuttgart, Germany, was all but obliterated and she was kicked off the team.
Bergmann was Jewish. She would miss that year’s Berlin Olympics. There was no way the Nazis would allow a Jew to compete and possibly win. Now comes news that Germany’s track and field association restored the mark, calling the decision an “act of justice and a symbolic gesture” while acknowledging it “can in no way make up” for the past. It also requested that she be included in Germany’s sports hall of fame. This was all a pleasant surprise for the 95-year-old Bergmann -- a victory for the strong-willed woman who later changed her name to Margaret Lambert after emigrating to the United States in 1937. ”That’s very nice and I appreciate it. I couldn’t repeat the jump today. Believe me,” said Lambert, who lives in the New York City borough of Queens.
