The first Olympic Games to be overshadowed by war were due to take place in 1916. Berlin was preparing intensively. In June 1913, the future competition venue, the Deutsches Stadion, was opened, with thousands of doves released during the ceremony. The symbolism was clear. But the world was hurtling towards war. And it broke out just a year later. Instead of competing in sports arenas, the Germans found themselves in the trenches. And they weren’t the only ones.

Berlin did, however, host the Olympians. In 1936, athletes flocked to the city to compete for medals. The XI Summer Olympic Games, however, were steeped in propaganda. They were also the last before the Second World War, although the International Olympic Committee had already selected the organisers for both the Summer and Winter Games for 1940 and 1944. The war ruined these plans.

Tokyo was the first to make preparations. The Japanese capital was to be the first non-European and non-American city to host the Olympic Games. Sapporo was to welcome the athletes in winter. Two years before the planned opening ceremony, the IOC was forced to make adjustments. It was thus decided that, due to the Sino-Japanese War, the Games would be held in Helsinki (summer) and Garmisch-Partenkirchen (winter, for the second time in a row). Four years later, the sporting festival was to be held in London (summer) and Cortina d’Ampezzo (winter).

The ideas were sound, organisational work was underway, and the various National Olympic Committees were expressing their willingness to take part. As late as January 1939, the *Gazeta Lwowska* reported:

“The Finnish Organising Committee for the Olympics announced that entries had so far been received from twenty countries, namely: Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, Germany, Greece. England, Haiti, the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Norway, Palestine, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and Finland”.

In May 1939, the Polish Olympic team took their oath. The squad wanted to prepare thoroughly for the Games. The greatest athletics star, Janusz Kusociński, even broke the national record in the five-kilometre race on the track in Helsinki. Then came 1 September 1939. Hopes of Olympic glory had to be put on hold. This did not mean, however, that sport disappeared from people’s lives with the first gunshot…

A bicycle made from stools and the ‘penalty frog’

Following the German invasion of Poland, the IOC was reluctant to decide on cancelling the Games. In fact, it did not do so even when the USSR was fighting the Finns in the Winter War in early 1940! The Games were officially cancelled in May.

Some of the soldiers fighting on the battlefields were sent to prisoner-of-war camps. Among them were former coaches, athletes and simply sports enthusiasts. Those of higher rank – officers – were placed in Offlags, whilst those of lower rank were held in Stalags. The conditions in which they had to live at that time were harsh. Food rations were meagre, and any visible display of patriotism was suppressed by the guards. Yet even in such circumstances, they managed to introduce at least a little ‘normality’.

“The prisoners set themselves the goal of maintaining good physical fitness. This was also important to the Polish camp command, as they took into account the possibility of escape, taking up arms, or the need to undertake an evacuation march. Sport and physical education, like other aspects of camp life, were also intended to help prisoners survive their captivity,” wrote Danuta Kiślewicz.

The greatest manifestation of the will to survive were the “games behind barbed wire”. At the turn of August and September 1940, at Stalag XIII Langwaseer near Nuremberg, Platoon Commander Jerzy Słomczyński came up with the idea of organising a sporting competition to replace the Olympic Games.

The events were to be held in strict secrecy from the Germans. After all, the stakes were far too high. The Olympic disciplines were listed: volleyball, cycling, archery, long jump, shot put and a 50-metre ‘penalty breaststroke’ race. Prisoners of war from Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Norway, France and Great Britain took part in the competition.

‘Słoma’, together with George O’Brien, the head of the camp’s Olympic committee, ensured that the most important symbols of the Games were in place. During the opening ceremony, the Olympic anthem was sung, the torch was lit and the flag was carried in. The moment of the oath was deeply moving. Teodor Niewiadomski, who took part in those events, recalled it as follows:

“At a discreet nod from ‘Słoma’, Cioch approached the presidium table. His right hand hovered in the air… it was clearly trembling; his fingers quivered, unable to rest on the blue scrap of old, faded fabric adorned with five circles cut out from the cardboard packaging of Wachman’s ‘zigaretten’.

- “What about our Jas?”

Teary eyes, nervous twitches on his face. His lips, pressed tightly together, were at a loss for words. Finally… “On behalf of all the athletes whose stadiums have been fenced off with barbed wire…”

Then the competitions began. First up was volleyball. The court was marked out between two trees connected by a clothesline. The match began. The excitement was so great that no one noticed the German doctor who had stood nearby and was shouting. The prisoners stopped playing, and the doctor reported everything to the guards.

It was the cyclists’ turn. The bicycle was constructed from two stools joined together with an old frame. The race took place in the ‘typhus ward’. The referee, Roger Virion, let the competitors in every hour. Their task was to cycle as many kilometres as possible (the inmates had even built a special odometer!). ‘Cat’s heads’, i.e. cobblestones they’d managed to get hold of, were used for the shot put. The long jump also had little in common with the modern version. Competitors jumped over a ditch filled with water, which was about three metres wide. The winner was the one who took the shortest run-up.

And the ‘penalty frog’, an event taken directly from the German guards. It was precisely this exercise that they often ordered unruly inmates to perform. They were then required to crouch down, stretch their hands forward or clasp them behind their heads, and bounce rhythmically in this position. During the camp games, volunteers covered 50 metres in this manner. The fastest man, Teodor Niewiadomski, won. Later, in his memoirs of that moment of triumph, he wrote:

“The Englishman approaches me once more. His touching words, ‘Congratulations’, are accompanied by a warm embrace. This ever-phlegmatic son of Albion has tears in his eyes. With my free hand, I wipe away my own tears.”

The Games were officially closed on 8 September 1940. Some of the prizes received, handmade by the participating athletes, found their way to the Museum of Sport and Tourism in Warsaw after the war.

In 1940, prisoners of war also competed at Oflag II B Arnswalde. For two days, they played netball and football, ran, jumped, threw and played tug-of-war.

1944

As they brought their Games to a close, the prisoners surely hoped that in another four years’ time they would be watching the real ones. Unfortunately, in 1944 the war was still raging. At Oflag II D Gross-Born and Oflag II C Woldenberg, it was therefore decided to attempt an Olympic-style competition once more. The Germans, who were no longer as strong on the front lines, agreed to the prisoners’ proposal in an attempt to improve their image somewhat. In Woldenberg, the proposal came from the Association of Military Sports Clubs. The camp authorities banned only the pole vault – for fear of attempts to jump over the barbed wire – and the javelin throw.

The competition took place on 23 August 1944. Among those involved were former Olympians, as well as people who had been associated with Poland’s finest athletes. Take, for example, Lieutenant Antoni Grzesik, who in 1939 had given orders to Kusociński himself.

And just as four years earlier, Olympic traditions and symbols were upheld in Woldenberg. The opening ceremony was official and took place in a specially prepared stadium. A flag was hoisted on the flagpole. The Games’ anthem was played. A torch burned. And the competitions were paused for a minute’s silence in tribute to the Warsaw insurgents.

Five thousand people were able to watch the competitions in boxing, basketball, athletics, football, handball and volleyball. That was the stadium’s capacity. The sporting competitions were complemented by contests in the arts, literature, visual arts and music. What’s more, to mark the occasion, the camp post office issued commemorative stamps!

The Olympians, who had once represented sports clubs, demonstrated a very high standard of athleticism. How else could one describe a situation in which these often malnourished, frail enthusiasts achieved results that were nothing short of outstanding? Take the 100-metre sprint, for example. Second Lieutenant Sprężyk-Widawski clocked a time of 11.5 seconds. Just over a second slower than the world record!

Similar initiatives were undertaken by prisoners at Oflag II D Gross-Born, except that in that camp the Germans forbade the five Olympic rings from being sewn onto the flag. At Stalag XIII C Hammelburg/Meinfranke, the Poles organised the ‘Olympics ’44’ competition. The situation was similar at Oflag VII A Murnau. In all these places, the time spent on sporting competition and training – often carried out in secret – was the most fondly remembered period of captivity. Kazimierz Rudzki wrote the following in *Przegląd Sportowy* shortly after the end of the Second World War:

“And that is why this extraordinary 1944 Olympics in Woldenberg was more than just sporting fun. It was a symbol of faith in the value and meaning of the Olympic ideal, despite everything and in spite of everything that was happening beyond the barbed wire of the camp.”