Fire on the Track

by Roseanne Montillo

  —

  The games were set to start on August 1. Clouds had gathered again that morning and promised a fresh round of showers. Helen woke early and spent the hours before the opening ceremony receiving treatments for her still-bothersome legs.

  Around Unter den Linden, streets were swarming with cars and pedestrians heading toward the stadium. Despite the lack of sun, the avenues were a sea of colors, mostly red, as fifty-foot-tall stands had been erected on either side of the streets from which large flags displaying the swastika waved relentlessly. Spectators lined up to await the arrival of the torch as it made its way to the stadium.

  On Via Olympia and toward the stadium, the chaos of people and crush of banners became more prominent, flanked by small patches of multicolored flower beds that would disappear the moment the Olympics ended. For those who did not hold tickets to the events, the loudspeakers installed along the street offered up-to-the-minute notices on the athletes’ triumphs and disappointments. When the Games were not on schedule, music piped out to keep the crowds entertained.

  Outwardly, Berlin gave no sign that anything sinister was happening behind the scenes. But rumors abounded within the women’s dormitories, and even inside the men’s Olympic Village a few issues had arisen. The athletes had heard of special camps where groups of people were being segregated, though on arrival in Berlin, neither Betty nor any of the other athletes had noticed any. On occasion they even came across members of Hitler’s brownshirts “beating old men and women with their sticks,” Helen recalled. They had stood apart, afraid yet unable to look away. The atrocities they had read about in the papers had coalesced before them.

  Despite such occurrences, which Berlin officials made sure arose infrequently, it was hard not to be awed by the spectacle. And having just come from a country experiencing one of the world’s worst national depressions, the glitz of Germany “looked pretty good” to some of the athletes. At night, Berliners and visitors strolled the busy streets, particularly the Lustgarten, admiring the display of flags and flickering lights. Café Kranzler on Unter den Linden had become a popular hangout, its back wall a large Olympic banner.

  For those who had been to Berlin before and were there to report on the Games, the city appeared shielded by a coat of denial. The journalist William Shirer was one of the few who didn’t seem taken by Berlin’s facade or its “glittering appearance,” aware that the elaborate preparations had been set into motion simply to camouflage the regime’s much darker intentions. Even most Germans did not see the lengthening shadows ahead, or they pretended to ignore them. There was a feeling of exuberance in the air, and most people reveled in that. The country’s economic depression appeared to be over, and its citizens looked with optimism toward the future under the Hitler regime.

  —

  The athletes proudly emerged from the tunnel into the stadium, the thick humid air streaked with rain and laced with the shouts of thousands of spectators. They looked up to see the Hindenburg outlined against the gray sky. The crowd and the athletes were captivated, watching the dirigible soar like a bird, flaunting the swastikas painted on its tail fins along with the five-ringed Olympic insignia. Many of the attendees would recall the experience not a year later, when in May 1937 the Hindenburg, while attempting to land in Lakehurst, New Jersey, burst into flames, its glow visible from miles around.

  Adolf Hitler and the IOC president, Henri de Baillet-Latour, strutted into the stadium side by side, followed by a flock of nearly two dozen IOC officials. A great chorus of cheers heralded Hitler’s arrival as he made his way from the 243-foot-high bell tower into the stadium. He was greeted by a small girl in white, who bowed as she handed him a bouquet of flowers before he hiked up the stairway to his box. As soon as the officials took their spot, a band began to play the German national anthem, which was immediately followed by a rousing rendition of the “Horst-Wessel-Lied,” a notorious Nazi Party anthem and coanthem of the German state.

  More than a hundred thousand spectators awaited the torchbearer, also clad in white, as he made his way into the stadium and toward the Olympic cauldron. He dipped the torch to ignite the flame, and the athletes marveled at the spectacular blaze leaping in the kettle, burning as brightly as they had so often imagined. A bell rang, and doves soared over the stadium, sweeping up the spectators in the frenzy of excitement.

  —

  In theory, the torch relay was created to serve as a link between the ancient Games and the modern ones, yet—to strengthen the Nazi ideal of Aryanism—the athlete chosen to carry the torch was a very tall, blond, blue-eyed young man, the kind of specimen Germany was pushing as the embodiment of a “superior” race. As soon as the flame was lit, Hitler walked toward the microphone and with a rare economy of words announced in German, “I proclaim open the Olympic Games of Berlin, celebrating the Eleventh Olympiad of the modern era.”

  Milling about with the other team members, Helen opened the autograph book she had brought with her from Fulton to a blank page. She had chosen it specifically for Hitler’s autograph. She didn’t know how she was going to get it, but having read about him in school, she had made up her mind to meet him, out of sheer curiosity.

  —

  As the games got under way, spectators and competitors learned that one athlete who would not be participating was the German Jewish high jumper Margaret “Gretel” Bergmann. Word had reached her two weeks prior to the start of the Games that she would not be allowed to attend. The news had disappointed—though not surprised—her. At the tryouts, she had obtained a record score of 5 feet, 5 inches in the high jump, more than enough for a spot on the team. Yet officials were now informing her that her scores were not high enough, casting her aside due to her “mediocre achievements.”

  Upon Gretel’s removal, officials announced that the aloof Dora Ratjen would take her place. Dora had come to the Games harboring a shadowy reputation; her coarseness and perpetually surly disposition were off-putting to athletes, much as Stella’s attitude had been. Some athletes suspected that she was a boy masquerading as a girl, but no one had investigated the allegations, as nobody wished to argue with the German officials. Two years later it was confirmed that Dora was indeed a man; Dora herself admitted as much. Conspiracy theorists assumed that German officials had been aware of it but had allowed Dora to be placed on the team in order to take Gretel Bergmann’s place, as she was a Jew.

  —

  Helen had decided to initially hold back a little and allow other competitors to win the preliminary meets. Those watching wondered if all the hype about the American’s physical abilities was just that: hype.

  While the track was being prepared for the women’s 100-meter dash, Helen stretched her legs at a nearby bench and watched the rest of the competitors perform their own prerace rituals. She still nursed her shin splints, a bothersome reminder of her time on the Manhattan, which, along with a cold, created a general feeling of discomfort to which she was unaccustomed. Her plans to defeat her nerves and treat the Olympics as just another race, similar to all the ones she had already run, had not worked. The pageantry of it all—the large stadium, the multitude of officials arriving from countries around the world, as well as the athletes who either were returning for another chance to take home a medal or were at the start of their careers—caused her apprehension to bloom. She had not imagined that the Games would unnerve her as much as they did, that their size would be so disorienting. Suddenly the future she had imagined back in Fulton was materializing into her present.

  At one point she spotted Stella, whose jaw was set in concentration. As the current Olympic gold medalist in the event, Stella was heavily favored to win again, but one would not think as much to look at her, given her hunched shoulders and anxious behavior. She paced back and forth like a caged animal. She had lost weight, Helen noticed, her new trim physique reinforcing her masculine look. Like other competitors, Helen had always thought that Stella bore a striking resemblance to a man. Slimmer than a woman at th
e hips, yet full of muscles and bones that should not have been there, she moved like a man, too. Helen had never caught a glimpse of the removed beard, but on the day the Polish team had arrived, she had noticed faint shadows on Stella’s face. She mentioned it to no one.

  The crowds began to chant, signaling that the races were about to begin. Helen and Stella walked to the starting line, where they stood side by side, unsmiling, a height disparity of only a few inches—Helen a hair under six feet tall, while Stella was precisely five feet, nine inches. Helen’s stride, however, had recently lengthened to nearly that of Jesse Owens, almost nine feet. That was a crucial factor, of course, as the length of her stride coupled with the frequency of it would increase her velocity; it came down to simple mathematics, her trainers postulated, numbers that Stella had yet to hit. Stella often read the papers and memorized the statistics, but outwardly showed no stress as the numbers were revealed before her eyes.

  Although she had vowed not to show her best during the first preliminary meet, Helen beat Stella with a run of 11.4 seconds, toppling Stella’s world record of 11.9 seconds. But given the wind’s direction, the record was not allowed to stand. Most of the spectators, and Stella herself, believed that it had to be the weather conditions—or perhaps sheer luck—that had helped Helen in her run.

  But as the second heat began, no wind was reported. The two stood side by side again, awaiting the pop of the pistol, and when it came, Helen bolted down the track in 11.5 seconds. Still, the ultimate test would be in tomorrow’s final.

  —

  Helen was still very achy when she awoke on Tuesday, the day of the 100-meter final. The previous night, a downpour had reduced the track to muck. Helen feared the conditions would hinder her running time.

  The men’s track events were leading the stories in the newspaper, while the women had been relegated to the sidelines at best, to virtual oblivion at worst. Still, as Helen inserted her arms into her Olympic jersey and pulled her running shorts on, she was happy: the track conditions, her painful shins, and obnoxious reporters became almost insignificant as she swaddled herself in a sweatshirt and left the locker room.

  Outside, she stood apart and watched her competitors warm up. Aside from herself and Stella, twenty-nine athletes had been competing in the 100-meter sprint, and now only six remained. She feared, as some of the coaches were guessing, that Stella had allowed herself to be beaten in the previous two heats. This was when the runners would unleash their true competence, and Helen still felt brazen enough to trust that she could beat Stella again.

  —

  Betty stood on the sidelines, watching as competitors and friends lined up at the starting line for the 100 meters. She recalled the race she had run eight years earlier; how relaxed she had felt, without the butterflies that now fluttered within her. She looked toward Helen—as young, apprehensive, and inexperienced as she had been—and must have felt a tug for her old self. Helen was jogging in place, moving from foot to foot as the competitors found their spots, excitement and fear radiating off her body. Filled with pride and without resentment, Betty gave Helen a thumbs-up.

  By the afternoon the rain had disappeared, but the ground remained a glob of muck, sticking to Helen’s spikes. She removed as much of it as she could but abandoned the effort when she heard the “set” command being called. The runners settled into their places. As soon as she heard the official’s gun pop, she hurled herself from the starting line, her spikes pulling up thick lumps of soil from the track as she left her competitors far behind her. Her speed never diminished as she made her way toward the finish line. The persistent drizzle didn’t bog her down; neither did the wind. Even the mushy turf beneath her couldn’t slow her down. Betty cheered wildly as Stella fell behind Helen, who was now several strides ahead. Helen lunged forward, flinging herself toward the finish line, breaking the ribbon at 11.5 seconds—and matching the record she had set the day before. She was a comfortable two meters ahead of Stella, who came in second at 11.7, while Germany’s Käthe Krauß was clocked in third, at 11.9 seconds.

  Pandemonium broke out. Stella reluctantly joined Helen on the tracks for a commemorative photograph. Amid the glare of flashbulbs the two shook hands, Stella’s face as grim and tight as their handshake, a misunderstood gesture of graciousness that made the rounds of the world’s newspapers.

  —

  The episode that followed soon after Helen’s win became one of the most peculiar in sports history and one of the most uncomfortable moments ever in an athlete’s early career. As with any story, each passing decade reshaped it, its time and meaning altered even by Helen herself. Reporters embellished it even further. The most accurate portrayal of the episode was jotted down in Helen’s official Olympic diary, which she kept for the duration of the Games.

  Like all the other athletes, Helen had known that Hitler would be present throughout the Games. Caught up in preparing for her run, she had not noticed that he was sitting in the stands during the 100-meter dash, nor was she aware that she had dazzled him with her astonishing speed and strikingly tall frame—not, that is, until shortly after she had received her medal and was making her way to an interview with an American radio broadcast in a small interior room reserved for journalists. On her way, in the corridor, a young uniformed Nazi officer invited her to accompany him to Hitler’s private quarters. Dee was with her, and though Helen had initially wished to meet Hitler, she found the request unsavory. Helen and Dee argued with the officer, claiming that they were on their way to do an interview, but the official wouldn’t leave. He’d been told to take Helen to Hitler and to do so by any means necessary. The officer escorted the two women down a hallway into a densely draped area, thick with black-shirted, heavily armed, ominous-looking men who did not even blink when the women came in.

  Hitler entered, flanked by several guards. Helen was surprised by how small and pale he was—he looked nearly anemic. She surpassed his height by several inches, and her years on the farm had given her a healthy, vibrant complexion. His cold blue eyes stared directly into hers, and she fearlessly returned his gaze, which made him smile.

  By many accounts, those who met Hitler thought his eyes mesmeric, but Helen saw nothing special in them. She had never heard him speak, aside from the few words at the opening ceremony, but she had read that his rhetorical skills were universally praised. His tiny mustache seemed a stain she wished to wipe off, and his ill-fitting suit needed ironing. She nearly laughed at his tall boots, which he obviously wore to add height. Without saying a word, she thrust her autograph book into his face. Taken aback, he jumped and refused to sign it. So she held her hand out to shake his.

  He appeared momentarily stunned by her audacity, then finally grasped her hand. Rather than quickly releasing it, he gripped it, pulling Helen closer to him, hugging her, and pinching her round behind, caressing her in an intimate manner that made her squirm. Wriggling out of the embrace, she had not noticed the photographer hiding in a corner until the flash of a camera hit her face.

  “A little guy wearing a uniform and press identification tried to snap a picture,” she wrote in her diary that evening, her small penmanship clear and neat. “I never saw a man change his disposition so fast as Hitler did. And as the camera flashed, Hitler jumped about two feet in the air. When he landed fists flaying, he bellowed something like ‘Was Fällt Ihnen ein? Get him! Destroy the evidence!’ Hitler’s face turned red, and his eyes flashed hatred and rage.”

  She continued, “While the guards restrained the photographer, Hitler snapped his leather gloves across the man’s face, then pinched him and kicked his shins, all the while screaming in German.” Helen was stunned by the transformation.

  Then, as if nothing had happened, Hitler turned to her and through his interpreter asked if she liked Berlin. Helen, still through the interpreter, responded that she did. They continued to engage in small talk until Hitler’s interpreter mentioned that Hitler wished to invite her to spend the weekend with him in his villa i
n Berchtesgaden.

  Throughout the exchange, Dee had not said a word. But at that request she jumped in, playing up her role as coach and taskmaster, announcing that Helen was training for the upcoming relay race and could not go to the villa but that they were grateful for Hitler’s generosity. Perhaps Dee would like to spend the weekend with them as well, the interpreter asked, as Hitler smiled. It was not hard to understand what the men were implying. Dee declined again; she had lots of duties to attend to, she told him, much like the Führer himself.

  Hitler nodded, appearing none too pleased with the outcome of the visit, and stomped out of the room. By then both Helen and Dee had become uncomfortable, instinctual fear spreading through both of them. They wanted to leave. The young Nazi officer led the way out of the room to the stadium, where both were relieved to see the light of day.

  —

  Helen knew it was odd that she had attracted Adolf Hitler. Most people were less than charmed by her looks, and the press made no secret of it, as one journalist wrote in an article in the British Olympic Reporter: “Miss Stephens’ style was certainly not attractive, judged from the point of the charm of Jesse Owens. She possessed a phenomenal stride and the power of a quarter-miler. From the aesthetic point of view the palm should be awarded to [the German runner] Miss Dollinger, who finished fourth.” Helen was not surprised by that, and she remained determined not to let it hurt her. Yet the following morning a vicious rumor spread throughout the athletic village that would cause her more hurt than she could ever have imagined.

  —

  The athletes celebrated Helen’s victory well into the night. German dignitaries were hosting parties across Berlin, and the team was invited to attend all of them. The athletes were mesmerized by the German homes, their dangling chandeliers and plush carpets, the numerous glasses of champagne and liquor that were offered, the loud music that greeted them, and the tall blond officials who entertained them. They feasted from evening until early morning, Betty and the rest of the girls swaying to the rhythm of the music in the middle of the ballroom while inhaling numerous glasses of champagne. Helen watched her teammate Harriet Bland, in particular, as she “stepped into the dance floor with any chap who invited her—an athlete, an officer, an attendant.” There was something irksome about the redhead, Helen complained to Betty, something she thought was tainting all the athletes who so far had participated with such dignity. She was also aware that Harriet could potentially make the relay team, which did not please her at all. Mindless and conniving, Harriet was not, to Helen’s mind, a good addition to the group.