All around, the city was in flames. Broken glass was strewn in the streets.
This was Kristallnacht 1938, when Nazi stormtroopers unleashed their hatred on Jewish businesses, synagogues, shops and homes — and the fire brigade stood idly by.
Up to 30,000 people across Germany were arrested, beaten, murdered or sent to concentration camps.
Sir Ludwig Guttmann, the founding father of the modern day Paralympics, escaped Nazi Germany and transformed perceptions of disabilities in sport
But, in the town of Breslau, there was a hero of the hour: doctor Ludwig Guttmann.
As traumatised Jews turned up at his hospital, he instructed staff to admit them, even if their injuries were too minor for an overnight stay.
When the Gestapo arrived to round them up, he persuaded the officers that they were all too sick to leave. He saved 60 people from certain death in concentration camps.
UK TO HOST THE GREATEST EVER PARALYMPIC GAMES
Six athletes will ‘fly’ into tonight’s spectacular Paralympics opening ceremony in golden wheelchairs, it was revealed last night.
The dramatic scenes will be at the heart of the showpiece opening, which is expected to be watched on TV by a record billion people around the world, as well as 80,000 in the stadium.
Among those flying into the stadium in wheelchairs will be Britain’s greatest ever paralympian, 11-time champion Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, 43.
Great Britain is hoping for a record haul of medals surpassing the 102 won in Beijing in 2008 as athletes are inspired by their home crowds, as happened during the Olympics.
Last night transport chiefs warned the Paralympics would pose a ‘huge challenge’ for London’s transport network, saying they feared the many Londoners who worked from home during the Olympics would not be doing the same during the games.
But London Mayor Boris Johnson promised that the Paralympics would be a ‘wonderful show’ and would change the preconception of disabilities for good.
As thousands rushed to buy the remaining tickets, the mayor said the opening ceremony would be ‘superb’ and that the public would be ‘blown away’ by the level of sportsmanship on display.
Tonight’s event will open with the words ‘O wonder! How many goodly creatures there are here’ from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with a young actress playing the character of Miranda leading the audience through the ceremony.
The dramatic scenes will be at the heart of the showpiece opening, which is expected to be watched on TV by a record billion people around the world, as well as 80,000 in the stadium.
Among those flying into the stadium in wheelchairs will be Britain’s greatest ever paralympian, 11-time champion Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, 43.
Great Britain is hoping for a record haul of medals surpassing the 102 won in Beijing in 2008 as athletes are inspired by their home crowds, as happened during the Olympics.
Last night transport chiefs warned the Paralympics would pose a ‘huge challenge’ for London’s transport network, saying they feared the many Londoners who worked from home during the Olympics would not be doing the same during the games.
But London Mayor Boris Johnson promised that the Paralympics would be a ‘wonderful show’ and would change the preconception of disabilities for good.
As thousands rushed to buy the remaining tickets, the mayor said the opening ceremony would be ‘superb’ and that the public would be ‘blown away’ by the level of sportsmanship on display.
Tonight’s event will open with the words ‘O wonder! How many goodly creatures there are here’ from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, with a young actress playing the character of Miranda leading the audience through the ceremony.
Ludwig Guttmann is also the inspirational neurosurgeon who founded the Paralympic Games and changed the course of thousands of lives.
Before 1948, when Britain last hosted the Olympics, patients with severed spinal cords were rarely rehabilitated, let alone to the extent that could compete in sports.
With no active life to look forward to and poor care, they contracted infections, gave up hope, and were usually dead within weeks or months.
But World War II meant hospitals were flooded with servicemen who had suffered this type of injury.
Enter Dr Guttmann, a Jewish German refugee who had fled to England in 1939 and was working at the specialist Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, Bucks.
Guttmann was a passionate believer in the power of sport to inspire and motivate — and he introduced an athletic competition in the grounds of the hospital to coincide with the Olympics at London’s Wembley.
His first event was wheelchair archery. Though only 16 competitors took part, including two women, the notion of paraplegics becoming athletes was ground-breaking.
His games gave birth to the Paralympics, and he was nicknamed Poppa by one and all — commemorating his role as the father of the Games
Sixty-four years later, his dream has been well and truly realised. Tomorrow, 4,200 athletes from 165 nations will begin competing with the world watching them.
But Guttmann’s early life gave no hint to the visionary he would become. He was born in the coal-mining district of Upper Silesia (now Poland) in 1899 to an orthodox Jewish family, and took a volunteer job at a local hospital for mining injuries when he was 18.
He was particularly touched by the plight of one young miner he tended. This man had a fine physique but had broken his back in a mining accident.
He was paralysed from the waist down and the doctors held out no hope. The accepted method of treatment in those days was to encase patients in plaster and isolate them.
They would die within weeks. This is what happened to that young man, who got a urinary infection and blood poisoning, and died within five weeks.
Guttmann said later: ‘Although I saw many more victims suffering the same fate, it was the picture of that young man which remained indelibly fixed in my memory.’
The following year, Guttmann started medical studies at the University of Breslau. He continued at Freiburg, and developed an interest in physical training and sport.
He was already a member of a Jewish fraternity determined to use sport to impart confidence and self-esteem to members feeling the scourge of anti-Semitism.
After failing to find a job in paediatrics, he returned to Breslau and enrolled in the neurology and neurosurgery department. By the time Adolf Hitler had risen to power in 1933, Guttmann was director of Breslau’s Jewish hospital.
His growing reputation led to many offers to work abroad. He turned them all down — until Kristallnacht.
In 1984 Prince Charles opened the Paralympics, complete with sombrero
Pioneer: The first event to take place was wheelchair archery. Though only 16 competitors took part, including two women, the notion of paraplegics becoming athletes was ground-breaking
By then, Guttmann was married with two children, Dennis and Eva, and he knew he’d have to leave Germany for their safety.
He got £250 (£10,000 today) from the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics — a charity led by the Master of Oxford’s Balliol College — and started work in the city’s Radcliffe Infirmary.
Dr Guttmann was a popular figure, but there were many who thought his ideas fanciful. He tirelessly argued, though, that with proper treatment paraplegics could live full and rewarding lives
Guttmann made such an impression that the government asked him in September 1943 to open a centre for spinal injuries, anticipating a rise in patients after the planned D-Day landings against Germany.
He agreed on the condition he could implement his own treatment theories, and picked Stoke Mandeville for his base, taking up his post on February 1, 1944.
His unit was called Ward X and had 26 beds and one patient.
Guttmann was a popular figure — but there were many who thought his ideas fanciful. He tirelessly argued, though, that with proper treatment paraplegics could live full and rewarding lives.
Sport was a critical part of the therapeutic programme he designed for his patients. Guttmann’s daughter Eva Loeffler, who at 79 is a torchbearer and this year’s Mayor of the Paralympic village, recently said: ‘My father’s big thing was that he was determined to make his patients taxpayers.
‘One of them told me he was lying in a corner of the ward feeling sorry for himself and my father came along and asked, “What are you doing?” He said he was waiting to die. So my father said that, whilst you’re waiting for the Good Lord to take you, go to the workshop and do some carpentry, do some work, start a career.
‘So he did. And this chap told me that after leaving hospital, he actually became the head of a building firm and did very well.’
Guttmann ended up inspiring thousands — and changing the way the nation thinks about paraplegics. Last month, a statue to him was unveiled at Stoke Mandeville.
But his real legacy will be the performances during the next two weeks. As his son Dennis told the participants of the 1980 Stoke Mandeville Games: ‘You are my father’s memorial.’
