WASHINGTON —The protests over China’s human rights abuses as it prepares to host the 2008 Olympic underline a key fact: Sports and politics are supposed to remain separate, but rarely are.

An exhibit at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum outlines another stark example of when athletes become ambassadors: The 1936 Berlin Olympics, used by the Nazis as international propaganda to trumpet the strength, nobility and supposed “superiority” of the German people.

The exhibit, on tour in the U.S. since 1998, follows Germany as it tried to regain stature after its withering defeat in World War I. Germany won the 1936 Olympic bid in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power. But international debate on whether countries should boycott the games grew heated as Germany banned Jews and Gypsies from its teams, and racism and anti-Semitism in the country increased.  The controversy abated and the games were held.

Many know the story of America’s Jesse Owens who, along with other black American athletes triumphantly took home 10 medals. The exhibit reveals the lesser known fact that Owens was a sensation in Germany even before the games and was mobbed and adored for his skill and charisma.

Also frequently glossed over is the fact that Americans’ attitudes towards blacks in the 1930s were not much better than Germans’. Jim Crow laws, segregated drinking fountains and the threat of lynching were very real in the U.S., but largely nonexistent in Berlin during the German games. “At least in Germany, we didn’t have to sit at the back of the bus,” Mack Robinson, brother of Jackie Robinson, said, according to the exhibit’s curator.

In the end, Germany dominated the Olympics and projected strength to the world, reviving the spirits of its people. As the games were being played, just a few miles away from the Olympic stadiums in Berlin another large construction project was underway – the German concentration camps. Many German athletes, including Jewish medal winners from previous Olympics, died in the camps.

“The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936” opens at the Museum on April 25  and runs through Aug. 17 in the Kimmel-Rowan Gallery. No passes are needed.  The Museum is open seven days a week. Call (202) 488-0400 or visit www.ushmm.org for more information.