8 May 2000 Helmut "Henry" Laskau, a champion race walker has died
after a long illness, USA Track and Field announced on Monday. He was 83.
Born in Berlin on September 12, 1916, Laskau was a top 1500m runner in Germany , but his athletic talent was no foil inasfar as the nazi regime was concerned for his judaism.
Laskau first suffered exclusion from representing Germany and, in 1938, was interned in a nazi concentration camp.
With an athlete's determination and refusal to surrender, he managed to escape from the camp and fled to France and from there to Cuba before shipping to the United States. With athletics put on the backburner during the conflict, Laskau enrolled in the US Army and worked for the Allied counter-espionage services.
Returning to competition after the war as a race-walker rather than a distance runner, Laskau, went on to win 42 United States national titles and to represent his adopted country in the 1948, 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games. He placed 12th in 1952 at 20 kilometres.
Laskau was a 1951 Pan American Games champion and a four-time winner at the Maccabiah Games. During an 11-year career, he set five national records, and was unbeaten in American competition over a nine-year period.
Just like Janusz Kusocinski - the Polish hero who took Olympic gold in the 10,000m in 1932 at the Los Angeles Games - Laskau was part of a group of athletes who, during the years of nazism, demonstrated through military valour or political commitment the values of human dignity and egalitarianism that are fundamental to all athletes.
