By Alexi Khan

Fourth Floor reporter and photographer, Anissa Coelho, won the Spirit Award at the J.Olympics on February 18th. What is Olympic spirit? It is not about winning but taking   part. The Olympic spirit is one of cooperation, dedication and focus. Anissa epitomized this at the J.Olympics.The Olympic Games offers athletes an opportunity to celebrate our common humanity. The goal of competitors is to express spirit by performing to the best of their natural ability.

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1936 Olympics Exhibition: Truly Worth Seeing

By Gurjit Khella and Mohammad Nasir

Late in November, on a cold winter day, two teachers, one counsellor, two student teachers, and 30 students trekked onto a crowded public bus for a field trip. All the students were whining about the cold and having to stand on the moving bus.

Little did they know about true human suffering. Two Fourth Floor journalists were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Holocaust Education Centre with this group. We left with wide open eyes and heavy hearts because we realized the truth about the 1936 Winter Olympics which occurred in Berlin, Germany.

Some people refer to these games as the Nazi Olympics. These Olympics took place just before the Holocaust which was an organised and methodical way of exterminating six million Jews.

During this time period German Jews, Blacks, Sinti, and Roma peoples were not allowed to participate in the Olympics in their home country. The Nazis were planting the seeds for the Holocaust at the time and human rights were being violated regularly. In fact, Jews and other ethnic groups were seen as subhuman by political leaders like Adolf Hitler who believed in a master race. Many people’s dreams were shattered and their ambitions were spit upon.

Ironically this field trip took place on the same day when the media came to JO to celebrate our success in sock wars. Who would have thought in one day that we would see the best of human nature at John Oliver and the worst at the Holocaust Education Centre? Lest we forget.