A Friendship Hitler Could Not Kill

In August 1936, Jesse Owens stood on the verge of elimination at the Berlin Olympics. The African American sprinter from Alabama had fouled twice in the long jump qualifying round, with Adolf Hitler watching from the stands. Then a tall German athlete named Luz Long approached him. Long, the very model of Aryan athleticism that Nazi propaganda celebrated, offered Owens quiet advice — suggesting he mark a spot several inches before the takeoff board to avoid another foul. Owens qualified on his final attempt and went on to win gold. Long took silver and was the first to congratulate him, embracing Owens in full view of the Fuhrer.

What began that afternoon outlasted the Games. The two exchanged letters across the Atlantic even as war clouds gathered. In his last letter, Long wrote to Owens: "Someday find my son Kai and tell him about his father." Luz Long was killed in Sicily on July 14, 1943, fighting in a war born from the very ideology his friendship with Owens had defied. Years later, Kai Long did find Jesse Owens. The two families forged a bond that stretched across decades and an ocean.

Proverbs 17:17 tells us, "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity." Luz Long loved at the worst possible time — when hatred was state policy and friendship itself was an act of resistance. The friendships that matter most are not the ones formed in comfort, but the ones that hold firm when everything demands you let go.