Margaret Lambert Track and Field at Francis Lewis High School

New York-- Margaret Lambert received her latest acknowledgement in an effort to redress a wrong in history. Yesterday, Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadow, Queens, named their track and field complex, the Margaret Lambert Track and Field. 

It’s a simple act to name a track and field area after someone but not a simple declaration considering where Lambert is coming from.

In 1936, she won a regional meet in Stuttgart, Germany with a scissor style high jump of 1.60m (5’3”).  The height tied the national high jump record making her the number one high jumper in Germany. Although she was on the German Olympic team scheduled to compete in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the Nazis eliminated her record and took her off the Olympic team because she was Jewish.  Her jump of 1.60m would be the gold medal height at the Berlin Olympics.


It has been a lifetime since Margaret Lambert, 96, left Germany.  A lifetime since she left blatant hatred.  A lifetime since she left anyone telling her she couldn’t do something.  In her long life Lambert has relinquished peace, struggled, fought, doubted, persevered, overcome, found peace again and now honor.

In the past 14 years, there has been a lot of righting the records for Lambert.  First, the German Olympic Committee invited her to be their guest at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics; Ira Berkow profiled her in The New York Times; a stadium in her home town, Laupheim, Germany, was named after her; she was featured in two major exhibitions on Jewish Athletics who didn’t compete in the ’36 Olympics; she was the subject of an HBO special “Hitler’s Pawns;” she was the subject of a movie “Berlin 36,” [released last year] which focused on the time she trained with the German Olympic team under the Nazis before the Olympics and last fall, the German Athletics Federation reinstated her record and included her in their Hall of Fame. 

After her record was reinstated, Howard Zeidman, coach of the girls’ track and field team at Francis Lewis decided that Lambert who lives in Jamaica Estate, Queens should be honored. “They are recognizing her all over Germany," he said.  “She has lived in Queens for 70 years so why aren’t we doing something for this champion.”

The reception at Francis Lewis High School was held in the school’s library. It was a rainy afternoon and the track in the back of the school was drenched.  Students, teachers, councilmen, World War II veterans, junior ROTC members, a congressional aide, a rabbi, the German deputy consul, and the Queens Borough President attended. Everyone wanted to be in the presence of a living legend. To be in the presence of living history. Lambert, and her husband of 71 years, Bruno Lambert M.D., 99, and their youngest son, Gary, were at the reception. 

Lambert’s posture is erect. She’s fully aware of what’s being said around her and has a sense of humor about all the accolades she’s receiving. In her remarks to the attendees she said, “I didn’t know I was such a big shot,” to a laughing audience. “It is too bad that none of my German high school teachers could be witness to this remarkable afternoon – a scholar I was not,” she continued. “They told me repeatedly and with great emphasis ‘I would never amount to anything’  -- I guess I fooled them.” 

In 1936, Lambert, then Gretel Bergmann, was studying and competing in London where she won the British high jump championship.  However, her father visited her and asked her if she would return to Germany.  Lambert recalled her feelings of the time in a previous interview, “I said I’m not going.  And my father said they threatened the family. I said I’m coming home, you know, immediately.” She returned and trained with the German Olympic team, for two months before the Games, even though she was excluded from joining Germany sports clubs.

As the Olympics approached news of the mistreatment of Jews in Germany started to be heard worldwide. This sparked a boycott movement throughout America, England and other countries. Some members of the International Olympic Committee and the International Association of Athletics Federations were concerned that discrimination against a particular people for their race or religion would have been grounds for an immediate boycott of the Games in Germany. 

But once the international community was satisfied Germany had Jewish athletes on their team, the Nazis sent Lambert a letter dismissing her from their Olympic team because she wasn’t good enough. The letter was dated, July 16^th, one day after the American team set sail for Germany. Only the half-Jewish fencer, Helene Mayer, remained on the German team. 

          

“It was a sham,” says Lambert.  “They forced me to be on the team for the United States and England and France and other countries who refused to come unless Jews [were] allowed to participate.”

In 1937, Lambert migrated to America.  She sponsored her husband, Bruno, whom she met at a segregated sports facility for Jewish athletes in Germany, to also come to America. He became a citizen a few years later and on the afternoon he received his citizenship papers joined the army to fight in Germany. It was during his return to Germany that he found out his parents were killed in a concentration camp. Bruno Lambert, served as a medic during World War II and received a bronze medal from General George Patton.

“Life was good, then bad, then good again,” reflects Lambert. She came to America with $4 and worked as a maid, where she was given free lunches, and a physical therapist, among other jobs. She continued competing, winning the 1937 national high jump and shot put championship. Lambert defended her high jump title in 1938 but stopped competing as the war became a reality. Her husband worked as a painter occasionally working alongside Nazis whom left Germany before he became a doctor. 

Rabbi Randy Sheinberg, of Temple Tikvah in Queens who attended the ceremony said, “None of us can erase the dark chapter of history that was the holocaust and that was Nazi Germany under Hitler and we shouldn’t try to do so. But we can and we are recreating its meaning by how we remember and the lessons we teach about it.” 

Those lessons are being learned by Chukwuevuka Enewkechi, a junior thrower for Francis Lewis who said, “there’s some bias going on but I’ve never seen or heard anything to that magnitude, that she has experienced so I think it’s an honor for us to be in her presence.” 

Lambert finished her speech by addressing her remarks to the students in the audience. “Undoubtedly some of you will think ‘what can this ancient person tell us about sports.’ What happened to me so long ago will tell you never to give up and that you can fight injustice in many given ways, even if means high jumping higher than anybody else.”

It’s a lesson everyone should learn.  
--Connie Aitcheson