Two-time Olympian and Santa Barbara Resident Shares Eyewitness Account of the Munich Massacre during the 1972 Olympics

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Sunday is the biggest night in Hollywood. The historical drama "September 5" details the hostage crisis involving Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Jane Frederick, a highly decorated pentathlete and Santa Barbara resident who competed in the 1972 Munich Olympics, was an eyewitness to the Munich Massacre.

"I might have been damaged, but I don't know. I don't feel damaged. I was given an incredible education in human nature ... all sides of it," Frederick said.

After being invited to compete in the national championship at the age of 13, Frederick admitted there was no denying she was born to be a track and field star.

At 17, she attended the University of Colorado and faced adversity during the pre-Title IX era. The athletic director kicked her off the team and said women weren’t allowed on the track.

Frederick was steadfast in her goals.

"Okay, if that's how I have to do it, when aren’t you here? Because I'll jump the fence," she said.

At 20, she was a pentathlete at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, competing on the U.S. team in her first international competition.

She remembers her excitement vividly.

"That day that we landed and went there, and yeah, it's just ... it's beyond excitement. I mean, my God, it's the Olympic Games and Munich, wow ... it's just this pageantry and this excitement."

After the opening ceremony and completing her portion of the competition, Frederick and a friend made plans to visit Innsbruck, Austria. They were unaware of the situation until they returned down the mountain that day.

"There were these huge, you know, headlines on newspaper stands, and we're like, 'What does that say? Wow, something happened,'" Frederick recalled.

A group of Palestinian terrorists called Black September had invaded the Olympic Village and targeted athletes on the Israeli Olympic team.

Frederick did not know what she was returning to. Upon arrival, police began escorting her and a few others to their apartments, but they were told to stop on an overpass.

"And then suddenly, it was a pair of full buses that stopped right below me, opened their doors, and out they came. They were bloodied and bandaged and, you know, ski-capped and all that," she said.

She vividly remembers what happened next.

"That one that I saw ... I know which one it was because I recognized it so well because then, of course, they went to the airport ... and when they got wind of the firefight, the sniper fight, he pulled the pin on that grenade and blew everybody up sitting right there. And that's what I saw."

She returned to her room, showered, and woke up to news that all the hostages were safe. But that turned out to be an inaccurate report by German officials. A few hours later, the truth came out: all 11 Israeli athletes were killed.

"You don't know what to do. You know you're eating your food, and it doesn't taste like anything," Frederick said.

A memorial was held after Olympic athletes, officials, and referees boycotted and refused to continue without acknowledging the tragedy.

"That was the other hard part," Frederick said. "On that Thursday, we marched back into my stadium where I had just competed."

She had completed her races but stayed to support those who needed to compete after the memorial. She then took an early flight home before the closing ceremony. She has difficulty recalling the months following the massacre.

"Everybody in the United States had seen this thing that happened and, you know, Janey's there ... so I don't even remember interacting with my family about it," she said.

Frederick did not talk about what she saw in Munich until the late 1990s. She befriended an elderly Jewish woman staying at Vista Del Monte in Santa Barbara with her mother, who encouraged her to open up to the group of elderly residents. After politely declining for about a year, Frederick decided to go for it.

"Standing there, beginning to talk about it, I broke down ... I mean, of course, I broke down. And also beginning to talk about it, and realizing in my own mind, to see myself standing there saying, 'Oh my God, this is the first time I've ever told anyone.' And I realized that my mother was hearing it for the first time. She didn't know," Frederick said.

Opening up was healing for her. She maintains her optimism.

"I'm comfortable in the world because, I don't know, I'm just more of a witness and an observer than I am deeply affected, but I could still function and have a positive outlook," she said.

Frederick has called Santa Barbara home since 1974. The University of Colorado, the same university that once told her she couldn't run on its track, inducted her into its Hall of Fame in 2022.