Objects and Memory Connect 9-11 Tragedy
Memories Linger Returned Objects Help Victims of September 11, 2001
Sep 10, 2008
Recovered personal objects belonging to lost loved ones of 9-11 were returned to grieving family members over the first several months following that horrific day. Some objects didn't filter their way through the fog of disbelief until years after the disaster occurred. Memories and objects of the simultaneous attacks of September 11, 2001 -- the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93 in Pennsylvania -- have converged to create lasting impressions and physical memorials that commemorate the day instantly tagged simply as "9-11".
These objects have soothed the souls of some of the living even as they commemorate and solidify the past.
WBGU Channel 27's "Objects and Memory"
Recently, WBGU Channel 27 aired a documentary titled "Objects and Memory", dealing with the healing power that objects can offer to human memory. Thousands of lives were lost on 9-11 and hundreds of thousands of lives were affected by the catastropic event. Many personnel combined and many hours were spent to recover personal affects.
A fireman's badge, an intact pocketbook, a scrap of clothing, a single marble, a crumpled i.d. card -- these were all painstakingly recovered and returned to suffering families.
Federal agents, local authorities, and family members sifted through the vast tonnage of debris which was transported from Ground Zero to the inexplicably appropriately named Fresh Kills Landfill, on Staten Island, to find anything returnable. The debris was more than burned, bent steel and crushed concrete; it was bits and pieces of human bone and twisted, ravaged personal artifacts.
Objects Remain As Living Memory
A sister's intact pocketbook remained a mystery of unthinkable disaster. How could the pocketbook, with billfold, Rosary beads, and paper money inside, remain unscathed? Family members were astounded to have the pocketbook returned to them in such strikingly good condition, when the owner was totally and irrevocably lost in the calamity it survived.
A Rabbi left a wrist band on a couch beside the wife of a lost husband. The inscription on the band was a phrase from the Bible -- indicating the improbability of one sitting by while his fellow man's suffering was so near. The band became the wife's strength, but she was ever unsuccessful in attempting to locate the Rabbi.
Memory and Objects Connect
Semptember 11, 2001 will live in infamy. It is a day that Americans remember well where they were and what they were doing when news of the World Trade Center attack spread across the country. It is as December 7, 1941, the date of the attack on Pearl Harbor, when U. S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the first day of infamy and said freedom would be defended by America's joining World War II to destory evil.
Some objects of 9-11, such as the pocketbook, were donated to the Smithsonian Institute. For some objects, having soothed the living, may have healing powers for other generations.
They act as connective tissue, bridging victims to the future, as well as providing a view of the past.
