This year seems to be the year of horrible anniversaries. After we remembered 25 years of chernobyl in April it now is time to remember 10 years of 9/11.
9/11
9/11 is actually the date when the worst terrorist attacks in history happened in New York City but it also became a synonym for those actions since then.
My experience of 9/11
September 11th, 2001 was my 11th day at work. I started an apprenticeship in a bank and was working in a small branch in a small village. Usually most branches had TV sets all around but this branch did not so all media we had was the radio.
It was a very busy and stressful day for my 2 colleagues so that there was no time for them to teach or show me a lot of things. I ended up doing some stupid paperwork (like way to often) and listened to radio when all of a sudden the current broadcasting was stopped and the breaking news from NY were broadcasted.
At first I couldn’t really believe it. I thought it was kind of a bad radio prank (happened quite often at that time) and tried to figure out how in the world such a prank message should be funny. When the news were broadcasted repeatedly I started to understand that this indeed was real and incredibly tragic.
I listened to the sad voice on the radio that described what could be seen on the news channels. I became very quiet, pale and stopped working for some time. My colleagues realized that something was wrong but did not believe me when I told them what I just heard in the news. When they heard it themselves they believed it but tried to ignore it an continue with their work….strange situation!
After finishing work at about 5 pm (German time) I went on my way home but decided while sitting in my car that I do not want to be alone at home. So I visited my dad. We sat there, talked a little and just were sad.
My take away from that day
Even though I was far away from America and did not have friends or family in New York at that time this day did effect me and my life. Some opinions changed and priorities shifted and furthermore I realized that there are still so many ignorant people around the world – and close to me. This made me really sad and mad as well.
Some of my friends or family members really tried to tell me that the USA did deserve this and that it was their fault all alone. Bad karma and whatever….this made me very upset and led to some priority changes amongst my friends and family members. Furthermore I decided I will not stay in a bank forever and that I need to see more of the world in order to expand my cultural knowledge and to learn more about all different kinds of people, ethnicities and believes.
Sidenote
Actually it was planned to visit New York City early in 2002. Due to the terrorist attacks this plan was cancelled though and somehow never became reality since then. Almost 10 years after it might be the time to put this plan back on the table.
This recap was inspired by the tweet of @ajstream which requested youtube message about how twitter users experienced 9/11 back then (search for #911). The following was my response, I’d love to hear yours as well and share experiences.
So what was your experience? What did you learn or take away from that day?
Update:
During the last weeks I talked a lot about 9/11 with my students (16-18 years old) and many of them didn’t really know the term 9/11. When explaining they then nodded and said ‘oh yes, big accident’ (blame the bad wording on the English skills) but when showing some footage to them, they all became very quiet and very sad. It felt a little bit like 10 years ago when I saw the pictures of the collapsing WTC for the first time. Seeing the scare in my students’ eyes and seeing that they couldn’t really believe what they were seeing was very strange.
Afterwards there wasn’t much talking for quite few minutes. Everybody knew that this wasn’t the time to joke in class. A few minutes later I asked my students what they think and what they want to say after seeing those pictures. Most of them said that they are very very sad now after seeing all this and that they would like to help that something like this never happens again…
Reading tip: 9/11 – falling in love with death int he New York Times
