August 5, 1936: Helene Mayer wins a Silver Medal at the Olympics. Ordinarily, an athlete finishing 2nd in an Olympic event wouldn't be a big deal. This time, it is.
At 17, she won a Gold Medal in foil fencing at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, and was a national hero in Weimar Germany. She competed again in 1932 in Los Angeles, but just before a match, she was told that her boyfriend had died in a military training exercise. This was only a year after losing her father. Shaken, she only finished 5th.
She stayed in America to attend college as an exchange student. But when Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933, her membership at her native fencing club was terminated, because she was Jewish. She taught at California colleges, and then in 1935 her German citizenship was canceled with the Nuremberg Laws.
There was a movement to boycott the 1936 Olympics, scheduled for Berlin. To avoid this, Nazi authorities chose her as the token Jew on the German Olympic team. She won a Silver Medal, and, on the podium, in an effort to protect her family, gave a Nazi salute.
She went back to America, and won the U.S. women's foil championship 8 times in 13 years from 1934 to 1946. In 1952, with World War II over and freedom back in place, but perhaps knowing she was dying, she returned to her homeland, and got married, spending her last months in happiness. She was posthumously elected to the U.S. Fencing Association Hall of Fame.
Helen Mayer died on October 10, 1953, of breast cancer, in Munich, Germany. She was only 42 years old.
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August 5, 1936 was a Wednesday. These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Yankees beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-2 at Fenway Park in Boston. Lou Gehrig went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Rookie Joe DiMaggio went 2-for-5 with a home run and 2 RBIs. For the Red Sox, Jimmie Foxx went 3-for-4, but had no RBIs.
* The New York Giants beat the Boston Bees, 8-4 at the Polo Grounds. (This was the 1st of 5 seasons in which the Boston Braves called themselves the Bees, but the name never caught on, and they switched back.) Mel Ott hit 2 home runs.
* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-3 at Baker Bowl in Philadelphia.
* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 9-6 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. For the Pirates, Paul Waner went 3-for-4 with a walk and an RBI, but his brother Lloyd Waner only went 1-for-5.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4 at Navin Field in Detroit. (It was later renamed Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium.) Hank Greenberg was injured, and did not play. Billy Sullivan hit a 3-run double in the top of the 10th inning, and the Tigers could only respond with 1 run in the bottom of the 10th.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 4-1 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.
* And there was a doubleheader at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. The St. Louis Browns beat the Chicago White Sox, 16-4 in the opener. The nightcap was tied, 9-9 after 7 innings, when it was called due to darkness.
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