Lilli Henoch
Personal information | |
---|---|
Nationality | German |
Born | 26 October 1899 Königsberg, East Prussia (Germany) |
Died | September 1942 Riga Ghetto, Latvia |
Sport | |
Sport | Track and field |
Event(s) | Discus, long jump, shot put, 4 × 100 meters relay |
Club | Berlin Sports Club; Bar Kochba Berlin |
Achievements and titles | |
National finals |
|
Highest world ranking |
|
Lilli Henoch (26 October 1899 – September 1942) was a German track and field athlete who set four world records and won 10 German national championships, in four different disciplines.[1][2]
Henoch set world records in the discus (twice), the shot put, and the 4 × 100 meters relay events. She also won German national championships in the shot put four times, the 4 × 100 meters relay three times, the discus twice, and the long jump. She was Jewish, and during the Holocaust she and her mother were deported and shot by the Nazis.[3]
Early life[]
Henoch was Jewish, and was born in Königsberg, East Prussia (Germany).[1][4][5][6] Her father, a businessman, died in 1912.[6] She and her family moved to Berlin, and her mother subsequently remarried.[6]
Track and field career[]
Henoch set world records in the discus, shot put, and—with her teammates—4 × 100 meters relay events.[1]
Between 1922 and 1926, she won 10 German national championships: in shot put, 1922–25; discus, 1923 and 1924; long jump, 1924; and 4 × 100 meters relay, 1924–26.[1][4]
After World War I, Henoch joined the Berlin Sports Club (BSC), which was approximately one quarter Jewish.[6] She missed a chance to compete in the 1924 Summer Olympics, because Germany was not allowed to participate in the Games after World War I.[3][7] In 1924, she trained the women's section in Bar Kochba Berlin.[6] She was a member of the BSC hockey team, which won the Berlin Hockey Championship in 1925.[6]
Discus[]
She set a world record in discus on 1 October 1922, with a distance of 24.90 meters.[1][4] She bettered this on 8 July 1923, with a throw of 26.62 meters.[1][4] She won the German national championship in discus in 1923 and 1924, and won the silver medal in 1925.[1][4][8]
Long jump[]
In 1924, Henoch won the German Long Jump Championship, having won the bronze medal in the event the prior year.[6][9]
Shot put[]
On 16 August 1925 Henoch set a world shot put record with a throw of 11.57 meters.[1][4] She won the German national championship in shot put in 1922–25, and won the silver medal in 1921 and 1926.[1][4][10]
4 × 100 meters relay[]
In 1926, she ran the first leg on a 4 × 100 meters relay world record—50.40 seconds—in Cologne, breaking the prior record that had stood for 1,421 days by a full second.[1][4][6][11] She won the German national championship in the 4 × 100 meters relay in 1924–26.[1][4]
100 meter dash[]
In 1924, she won the silver medal at 100 meters in the German national championships.[12]
Post-Nazi-rise disruption of career[]
After Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Henoch and all other Jews were forced to leave the membership of the BSC, by the Nazi's new race laws.[6][13] She then joined the Jüdischer Turn-und Sportclub 1905 (Jewish Gymnastics and Sports Club 1905), which was limited to Jews, for which she played team handball and was a trainer.[6][13][14] She also became a gymnastics teacher at a Jewish elementary school.[14]
Because she was Jewish, the German government did not allow her to participate in the 1936 Summer Olympics.[3]
Killing[]
The Nazi German government deported Henoch, her 66-year-old mother, and her brother to the Riga Ghetto in Nazi Germany-occupied Latvia on 5 September 1942, during World War II.[1][3][7][13][15] She and her mother were taken from the ghetto and shot by an Einsatzgruppen mobile killing unit in September 1942, along with a large number of other Jews taken from the ghetto. They were all buried in a mass grave near Riga, Latvia.[1][2][3][4][16] Her brother disappeared, without a trace.[13]
Hall of Fame and commemoration[]
Henoch was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1990.[1][17]
In 2008, a Stolperstein was installed in her honor in front of her former residence in Berlin.[13]
See also[]
- List of select Jewish track and field athletes
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n "Lilli Henoch". International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b ""Forgotten Records" – Exhibition on Jewish sports in track and field in the 1920s and 1930s". German Road Races – Ansicht. 19 June 2009. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Paul Taylor (2004). Jews and the Olympic Games: the clash between sport and politics: with a complete review of Jewish Olympic medalists. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-903900-88-8. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Joseph M. Siegman (1992). The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. SP Books. ISBN 978-1-56171-028-7. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Bob Wechsler (2008). Day by day in Jewish sports history. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. ISBN 978-1-60280-013-7. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j Gertrud Pfister and Toni Niewirth (Summer 1999). "Jewish Women in Gymnastics and Sport in Germany; 1898–1938" (PDF). Journal of Sport History. 26 (2). Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936 | The Holocaust; Persecution of Athletes". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 8 April 2016.
- ^ "Athletics – German championships (Discus Throw – Women's)". www.sport-komplett.de. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ "Athletics – German Championships (Long Jump – Women's)". www.sport-komplett.de. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ "Athletics – German Championships (Shot Put – Women's)". www.sport-komplett.de. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ "World Record Progression in Athletics: 4x100 m relay – men & women". info-mix.info. 2009. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ "Athletics – German Championships (100m Women)". www.sport-komplett.de. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Simon Sturdee (8 August 2008). "Berlin ceremonies mark Olympic history's darker side". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Gertrud Pfister. "Lilli Henoch; 1899–1942". Jewish Women's Archive. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Ira Berkow (21 July 1996). "The World Outside the Stadium". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Lipman, Steve (6 August 2004). "The Forgotten Olympians". The Jewish Week. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
- ^ Harvey Rosen (17 January 1990). "5 New Names in Jewish Hall of Fame". The Jewish Post & News. Retrieved 2 November 2011.
Further reading[]
- "Lilli Henoch. Fragmente aus dem Leben einer jüdischen Sportlerin und Turnlehrerin", Ehlert, Martin-Heinz, Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte des Sports, Volume 3, Issue 2, pages 34–48, 1989
External links[]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lilli Henoch. |
- "Lilli Henoch and Martha Jacob – Two Jewish Athletes in Germany Before and After 1933", by Berno Bahroa, Sport in History, Volume 30, Issue 2, pages 267–87, 2010
- 1899 births
- Sportspeople from Königsberg
- People from East Prussia
- German female shot putters
- German national athletics champions
- 1942 deaths
- German female discus throwers
- German female long jumpers
- German female sprinters
- Athletes from Berlin
- German female handball players
- People who died in the Riga Ghetto
- German civilians killed in World War II
- German Jews who died in the Holocaust
- Jewish German sportspeople
- Violence against women in Germany
- People executed by Nazi Germany by firing squad
- 20th-century German women