A Gold Medal for Conscience

18 A G LD MEDAL BY MICHAEL BURGESS Refusing to attend the Olympics in Nazi Germany for won Jack Shea a different kind of respect. Conscience n 1932, Jack Shea had the did in the Olympic Games.’” Jack Shea’s victory in the thrill of his life, winning Little did he know then 500-meter speed skating two speed skating gold that his prayer would be event was the first gold medals in front of friends answered in his hometown medal for the U.S. in the and family in Lake Placid, just a few years later. By 1932 Winter Olympics. INew York. Winning gold had 1929, Shea, a student at Lake been Shea’s dream since Placid High School, had won childhood, when Lake Placid the North American champi- native Charles Jewtraw won onships, repeating the feat in the first gold medal in speed 1930. He was called “the skating at the first Winter Lake Placid Phenom.” When Olympic Games in Chamonix, Governor Franklin Roosevelt France, in 1924. visited Lake Placid in September “Charlie Jewtraw put Lake 1929, Shea was asked to Placid on the map,” Shea told show the governor the new Sports Illustrated years later. speed skating oval. “He drove “Speed skating was here in up in a big open Packard,” the wintertime, and every kid Shea recalled, “with that between Lake Placid and famous smile and his distinc- Saranac Lake wanted to be tive cigarette holder, and after like him. … When I said my we had talked, he said, prayers before bed, I ended ‘Young man, maybe I’ll see the same way every night: you here two years from ‘Lord give me the opportunity now.’ That’s one thing that LAKE PLACID OLYMPIC MUSEUM LAKE PLACID OLYMPIC to repeat what Charles Jewtraw sticks out in my mind, NEW YORK archives • SPRING 2016 19 A G LD MEDAL LAKE PLACID OLYMPIC MUSEUM LAKE PLACID OLYMPIC Shea skating in a 1932 Olympic event because when I crossed the democracy into a dictatorship. line first, I turned and waved A boycott of Jewish-owned to him in the stands. It was businesses swiftly began. like history coming true.” His racist policies of Aryan supremacy and hatred of Jews A Hero’s Welcome spread alarm around the At the Olympics in 1932, world, especially in the United Conscience MUSEUM OLYMPIC PLACID LAKE Shea again rubbed elbows States. Within months, Shea (left) first met Franklin with the governor when he American Jewish leaders began would be able to participate. Roosevelt (right) when the had the honor of reciting the to openly discuss whether With that assurance, he came governor visited Lake Placid in Olympic oath at the opening American athletes should go home convinced the United September 1929. ceremonies. He sat on the to Nazi Germany in 1936, States should participate and, dais near Governor Roosevelt in light of the discrimination, within days, the AOC agreed and next to Avery Brundage, harassment, and violence. to accept Germany’s invitation. head of the American Olympic They wanted the United It is hard to believe now When Governor Committee (AOC). Shea went States and other countries to that Hitler had many admirers back to college and got a boycott the games unless the in the United States and par- Franklin Roosevelt hero’s welcome at Dartmouth Olympics were moved to ticularly on the International visited Lake Placid in where he helped win collegiate another location. Olympic Committee, but many skating competitions and Brundage believed that members, like Brundage, September 1929, Shea prepared for the next winter politics and sports should not viewed the boycott move- Olympic games. be mixed. He described the ment as a real threat to the was asked to show the In 1931, the International Olympic movement as “the Berlin Olympics and said the Governor the new Olympic Committee (IOC) greatest social force of our opposition was emanating awarded the 1936 summer time.” In response to concerns from Jews and Communists. speed skating oval. games to Berlin and in 1933, from his committee that the They also noted that the the winter games were Olympic charter and spirit United States itself was hardly awarded to Garmisch- would be violated by the in a position to criticize the Partenkrchen, Germany. By Germans, he agreed to go to Germans for their treatment March 1933, Adolf Hitler had Germany in 1934 to see the of the Jews in light of the gained power as Chancellor situation. He was assured by segregation and discrimination of Germany and quickly con- Nazi Olympic and German against African Americans, solidated control, turning a government hosts that Jews particularly in southern states. www.nysarchivestrust.org 20 LAKE PLACID OLYMPIC MUSEUM fort with the discrimination urging no Catholic young against Jews in Nazi Germany person to go to Germany and gave him pause. He had some compete in the Olympics. practical concerns as well, including travel costs during A Forceful Advocate the Depression. He told the What was not widely reported Irish Times newspaper, “I had at the time or after was that a family and I had financial Shea had actually become a obligations and there really forceful advocate who wanted were no sponsors or anything to use his influence to stop at that time, so it would the United States from partici- have been very difficult for pating. At Albany Law School me.” But ultimately it was in the fall of 1935, he wrote his conscience that prevented a lawyerly and contemptuous him from participating. letter to Brundage which his Remembering his Jewish son, Jim, keeps in his father’s friends in Lake Placid, where scrapbooks from that era. His there was a significant Jewish law school study and training population, he noted that “It certainly is evident in the style was very natural for me with of the letter, which asked a MUSEUM LAKE PLACID OLYMPIC the background knowledge I series of pointed questions as had and with the knowledge well as statements. Shea shook hands with Avery Shea’s opposition was of these people living in Lake “I have read in the press Brundage at the 1932 Olympics, heavily influenced by his Placid who felt like they were your attempt to justify but held him in contempt just Irish Catholic faith and his being oppressed and discrimi- American participation in a few short years later because Dartmouth political science nated against and it really the Olympic games in Nazi of the official’s views on Nazi classes. The 1932 United was a crime against humanity Germany in 1936. As an Germany. States team he skated with what they were doing. … I American athlete who repre- included Irving Jaffee, a Jewish urged all the athletes publicly sented the United States in speed skater from New York and privately that it wasn’t the 1932 Olympic games and City who had also won two the thing to do.” He insisted, who won the world ice skating Like Brundage, gold medals. There were two “If I were chosen and in the championship, I should like Jack Shea believed other Jewish members on the mind of entering the competi- you to know that I regard your Olympic team. He wrote to a tion again, I would not do so statement as un-American, in the Olympic ideal leader of the boycott move- as a friendly and sympathetic untrue, unsportsmanlike ment, “What the AOC has gesture toward the Jews of and thoroughly vicious. How of peace but he asked the Jews to do is this: the United States.” anyone who reads your views also drew a line with To humiliate themselves by The situation for Jews in can believe that you are going to Germany, where Germany worsened in 1935 representative of the sporting the Nazis. they are considered as swine; when the Nuremburg laws spirit in America is more than to allow themselves to be were enacted, which forbade I can understand.” embarrassed; to sacrifice the Aryan marriage with Jews and He was especially outraged honor of their race.” deemed Jews to be “subjects” at Brundage’s suggestion that not citizens. Leading Catholics America had discriminated Supporting Jews and Protestants came out against African-Americans. in Lake Placid against sending a team to “It places the United States of Shea thought about defending Germany. Commonweal, a America on a par with Nazi his Olympic titles and skating prominent Catholic magazine, Germany. You make it appear in Germany, but his discom- issued a blistering editorial, that the barbarism of Nazidom, NEW YORK archives • SPRING 2016 21 years later, Hitler marched THE ARCHIVES into Poland and World War II CONNECTION began. Many athletes from the 1936 Games died in the he New York State war and some of the Jews Library holds a biography who participated ended up in T of Melvil Dewey, the founder Nazi concentration camps. of the Lake Placid Club, Shea stayed home and who started winter sports raised a family and was active activities in Lake Placid. This in community and civic affairs. biography provides useful He was elected Town Justice context about the introduc- and later Supervisor of the tion of winter sports in Lake Town of North Elba, which Placid that led to the bid and includes Lake Placid. He was award of the 1932 Olympics. one of the community leaders The New York State Archives who helped bring the Olympics additionally holds a letter back to Lake Placid in 1980. Dewey sent to his board of His son, Jim, was a Nordic directors related to the Club’s skier in the 1964 Olympics.

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