Olympics Cities Destination Quiz- Berlin to Stockholm

Though it has been a tragic day here in the United States, as all of us are mourning the shooting victims at midnight premiere screening of "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" at a theatre in Aurora, Colorado, but we are going to go ahead with our plans to conclude this series.

We finish this series up with a look at the distance between Berlin, Germany, which hosted the very controversial 1936 Olympics, in which Adolf Hitler promoted Aryan supremacy, and Stockholm, Sweden, which hosted the more sanguine 1912 Olympics.

American track and field athlete Jesse Owens (1913-1980), a black man who is the subject of a folk song by Greensboro, NC, singer/songwriter Bruce Piephoff (a personal friend) entitled "Jesse" (2008), was able to prove the absurdity of Hitler's concepts as he won four gold medals in Berlin.

On a more tragic note, I learned from an exhibit about the 1936 Berlin Olympics at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, that Endre Kabos (1906-1944), a Hungarian athlete of Jewish heritage who won gold in Berlin in addition to his gold medal at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics was among the millions of Jewish people killed during World War II.

Kabos was sent to a concentration camp, but his death reportedly came on the battlefield after he escaped. His Hungarian teammate Attila Petschauer* (1904-1943) who won gold medals in fencing at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics and the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics was killed in a concentration camp.

Just this week, Hungarian officials detained Laszlo Csatary, 97, for alleged role in deporting Hungarian Jews to concentration camps.

On a lighter note, today's Berlin features stop lights, featuring little green men  and little red men, which are one of few surviving relics from East Germany. In 2004, several German cities, including Dresden introduced female counterparts for pedestrian stop lights.

As for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, among the gold medalists were Finnish wrestler Kaarlo Koskelo, Italian gymnast Alberto Broglia and Australian women's swimmer Fanny Durack. The above pictured dish is a popular one in Sweden during the holidays.

And, even though he has nothing to do with either Olympics, we will mention Bruce Jenner, the American 1976 Montreal Olympics track champion, since the mere mention of his name assures significantly more hits for our blogs.

So just how far apart are these two cities?

A) 454 miles

B) 479 miles

C) 504 miles

D) 529 miles

http://www.ushmm.org

http://www.jewishsports.net

http://www.washington.org


*-I happen to share a first name with the Hungarian Jewish athlete. My first name is Attila. My late Turkish father Mehmet Gokbudak chose to give me the Hungarian spelling as opposed to the Turkish spelling which is Atilla, which has assured that people in Turkey, including passport officials, do not spell my name correctly.

DC Diary- I Want to Go to the Holocaust Museum

We conclude our diary of the family trip to Washington, DC, with some tips on how to get your voice heard when traveling to any part of the United States, the world or The Milky Way, with members of your family or even your friends.

When traveling with groups, one of the main disadvantages is getting your voice heard, especially if you make considerably less money than anyone in your party. (I would not advise taking a trip with the Kardashians, and I'm not saying that because I'm Turkish and they're Armenian!).

Reverse psychology is one possibly effective method which could work though I did not try it myself.

A few trips back, I actually went to The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, to see an exhibit about the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympics, which turned into a propaganda outlet for Adolf Hitler (this was before the museum guard was tragically murdered at the museum some two years ago). The museum itself is very fascinating, but of course, it is quite depressing. As much sympathy as I have for the Jewish people and what they went through, I realized I could never go back to the museum again.

So, of course, it is a place that I would say I wanted to go to if in a group of more than four people. You will inevitably have one person say: "I want to go to the Smithsonian," or The Textile Museum or The National Zoo, so if you tell the Kim Kardashian of the group that you must, absolutely, positively must go to The Holocaust Museum.

Then, everyone will say: "Hmmm...that's too depressing, can we go somewhere else?" That's when you say The National Building Museum or the Folger's Shakespeare Library (yeah, I may be the only person in a group of 20 who would choose those places). And, amazingly enough, you might just get your way.

Since, Washington, DC, has quite a lot going on, there were indeed several places, we didn't get to visit and a few places that I hope to visit some time in the near future.

They include the 9:30 Club where a band called The Virginia Coalition performs on Jan. 15 (yes, I think it sounds like a lobbying group that should be on K-Street too), the Politics and Prose bookstore where "Washington Post" music critic Anne Midgette talks tomorrow night, the Studio Theatre which is getting set to perform "Marcus, or The Secret of Sweet" and two Turkish restaurants: Cafe Divan and Meze.

I must profess that I was very intrigued when I glanced over at Meze's web site (mezedc.com) and saw that they offer Saturday and Sunday brunches with beef sausage. I can imagine this might be confusing to some Anatolian villagers from a place like Yozgat, Turkey, who would seemingly paranoid that all sausage products must come from Porky Pig!

PS_ The image above is from the acclaimed 1985 documentary "Shoah" about the Holocaust. It lasts nine hours long, but it is said to be one of the best films about the subject ever made.