BILL PLASCHKE : Taking an Official Eraser to Black Mark of Terrorism

The dirty little secret of the Summer Olympics showed up at opening ceremonies Friday night, tapping a quiet beat on the consciousness of a world that wants to forget.

They didn’t march into the center of Olympic Stadium; they strolled around the back.

They didn’t sit together; it could not be arranged.

They didn’t carry signs; it is not their way.

But they were there, 12 of the 14 sons and daughters of the 11 Israeli athletes massacred by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Olympics in Munich.

It is the first time they have been together at an Olympics since their fathers were killed.

It is the first Olympics in which Palestine will carry a flag.

The two firsts may not be unrelated.

“We want to say to the world, ‘Hey, we’re still here,’ ” said Anouk Spitzer, a 23-year-old student from Tel Aviv. “Whatever happened in 1972 . . . it’s not finished.”

Spitzer was 2 months old when her father, fencing coach Andre Spitzer, was killed during the daylong siege of Sept. 5.

“He was one of the men in the helicopter,” she said. “Not the helicopter that was blown up. The helicopter where they went inside and shot everyone.”

Eight terrorists. Two Israelis killed in the Olympic village while they were being held hostage. The remaining nine killed in two helicopters.

The images of blindfolds and guns on a hotel balcony have been clouded with time.

Just the way the International Olympic Committee wants it.

There was no moment of silence Friday for the Munich 11. There was no recognition of the children. The flags flew high. It was nothing new.

Not once in the six Olympics since Munich has there been so much as an official utterance in memory of those who died trying to uphold the Games’ ideals.

“It is not the IOC’s policy to stage special ceremonies in such instances,” said IOC Director General Francois Carrard.

Not their policy?

It wasn’t going to be Anouk Spitzer’s policy to sleep with a tiny stuffed dachshund her entire life. But she does, because it is a gift her father had purchased for her shortly before his death.

“My mom found it in his suitcase,” she said. “It will be forever in my bed.”

The sons and daughters of the Munich 11 do not wish to politicize their loss. They only wish to personalize it.

They only wish somebody would admit that it actually happened.

This will be tough, considering the IOC will not even admit that the children happened. There was no announcement of their arrival here. There was no effort made to seat them together in the stadium, or present them to the media.

“Nobody wants any part of us,” Spitzer said. “Like they are scared of us.”

The interview with Spitzer took place outside the Jimmy Carter Center here, far from the Olympic activities, where the sons and daughters met with a president who did care.

Anouk Spitzer is a woman with a soft smile, strong voice and perfect English. Only when she briefly removes her sunglasses can you see that her eyes are red.

“My father was not here as a politician; he was here as an athlete,” Spitzer said. “He came here with dreams just like everybody else. He left in a coffin, but he had those same dreams.”

Spitzer said she and the others would imagine their fathers while watching Friday’s ceremonies.

“I will think about what he must have seen, how he must have felt, and pretend that maybe he could have still been here today,” she said.

She is not sure what she will imagine when she sees the Palestinian flag being carried 46 countries behind Israel.

She is only certain of this:

“It will be hard to see that the people carrying that flag will be safe . . . and my father was not.”

Earlier this week, Israel demanded that the IOC not allow Palestine to march under its flag. The new hard-line government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu objected to the use of the name “Palestine” by a team representing the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The IOC refused the demand, accusing the Israelis of playing politics.

Israel may have later fired a return shot when judo star Yael Arad suddenly decided she could not carry the flag. Some say she was busy training, others say she was sick.

Perhaps she was also influenced by her brother, who worked on the campaign that recently resulted in Netanyahu’s election.

The new flag bearer, a fencer named Lydia Hatuel-Czuckermann, said she would perform the task without looking or thinking about the small Palestinian contingent behind her.

“I will only look forward; I must look forward,” she said.

This is the feeling of the 12 sons and daughters. They who have come not in search of grudges, but closure.

“It took me a long time to understand that not every Arab is a terrorist,” Spitzer said. “I know now that those boys carrying that Palestinian flag are not the same ones who killed my father.

“My father liked and respected everybody. I try to be the same way.”

But the way the IOC views it, she is marked by tragedy, tainted by death, reeking of scandal.

So if the NBC cameras have enough courage to televise her sturdy image during the next two weeks, do not look.

Because what happened to the survivors of the Munich 11 never really happened. And can never happen again.