Nazi Olympic officials invited Martha Graham to participate in the Berlin 1936 Summer Olympic Games festival. Graham wrote: “I would find it impossible to dance in Germany at the present time. So many artists whom I respect and admire have been persecuted, have been deprived of their right to work, and for such unsatisfactory and ridiculous reasons, that I should consider it impossible to identify myself, by accepting the invitation, with the regime that has made such things possible.”