American track and field athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, is photographed during an exhibition press day, Wednesday, March 27, 2024 in Paris. Ahead of this summer’s Paris Olympics, an exhibit in the French capital shows how the Games have been a “mirror of society” since the beginning of the 20th century.
Dietschy said the exhibit sought to show the historic and political significance of the Olympics “through the life of big stars or champions like Alfred Nakashe, who was a Jew from Algeria competing in swimming and who was deported to Auschwitz” concentration camp during World War II. Nakashe competed with the French team in Berlin in 1936 and in the first postwar Summer Olympics in London in 1948 after surviving the Holocaust.
“Owens embodies this struggle to confront Hitler and the Nazi ideology ... But he himself was a victim of racism and segregation in the United States,” she said.