9/11 artifacts share 'pieces of truth' in victims' stories

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Jan Ramirez, main curator astatine the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, sits for an interrogation wrong a warehouse wherever thousands of artifacts from the 9/11 attacks are archived, July 16, 2021, successful Jersey City, N.J. Over the years, the depository has collected immoderate 22,000 idiosyncratic artifacts to assistance archer the stories of those who died and those fortunate to survive. Many of those idiosyncratic effects were plucked from the ruins of what was erstwhile the Twin Towers. Other items were donated by survivors oregon by the families of those who perished.(AP Photo/Robert Bumsted)

NEW YORK – For astir six years, Andrea Haberman’s ashen and damaged wallet laic mostly untouched successful a drawer astatine her parents' Wisconsin home, on with a partially melted compartment phone, her driver's license, recognition cards, checkbook and location keys. Flecks of rust had formed connected the rims of her eyeglasses, their lenses shattered and gone.

Those mundane items were the remnants of a young beingness that ended erstwhile a hijacked jetliner struck the northbound operation of the World Trade Center connected Sept. 11, 2001. Haberman was 25 and astir to beryllium joined erstwhile she was killed portion connected a concern travel from Chicago — her archetypal sojourn to New York City.

Her belongings, inactive smelling of Ground Zero, evoked mostly sorrow for Haberman's family. To easiness their pain, they donated the artifacts to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

"These are not the blessed things you privation to retrieve idiosyncratic by," said Gordon Haberman, her father.

The postulation of immoderate 22,000 idiosyncratic artifacts — immoderate connected show astatine the 9/11 museum, and others connected show astatine different museums astir the state — supply a mosaic of mislaid lives and stories of survival: wallets, passports, shot gloves, shoes, apparel and rings.

“Each idiosyncratic who makes up portion of that tally was an idiosyncratic who lived a life,” said Jan Ramirez, the museum’s main curator and manager of collections.

“We knew that families — the radical that person mislaid a loved 1 that time — were going to request to person a place, person a way, to retrieve the idiosyncratic that ne'er came location from work, that ne'er came location from a flight,” Ramirez said.

Many of those idiosyncratic effects were plucked from the ruins of what was erstwhile the Twin Towers. Other items were donated by survivors oregon by the families of those who perished.

A woodworking square, screwdriver, pry barroom and a toolbelt correspond Sean Rooney, a vice president astatine Aon Corp. who died successful the South Tower. Rooney’s essence was that of “a builder,” his sister-in-law Margot Eckert said, making the carpenter’s tools donated to the depository the “perfect antidote to the destruction.”

Rooney had phoned his wife, Beverly Eckert, astatine their location successful Stamford, Connecticut, aft being trapped by occurrence and fume connected the 105th floor. He spent his past breaths recounting happier times, whispering, “I emotion you,” arsenic helium labored for air.

His remains were ne'er found.

Beverly died 8 years aboriginal successful a level clang portion traveling to her husband’s precocious schoolhouse successful Buffalo, New York, to grant a assistance successful his honor. Before she died, she had acceptable speech the items she hoped would assistance archer her husband’s story, that of a play carpenter, handyman and unpaid with Habitat for Humanity.

“We person a gravesite for her, we don’t person a gravesite for Sean," Eckert said. “Artifacts go precise important. And artifacts are the facts that idiosyncratic lived. They are the facts you tin touch.”

For Robert Chin's family, the communicative was astir a emotion for playing softball. They recounted his archetypal deed — a thrust down the third-base enactment — playing for Fiduciary Trust International. To assistance savor the moment, his teammates scribbled congratulatory notes connected the shot earlier presenting it to him.

Among the names connected the shot were Pedro Francisco Checo and Ruben Esquilin Jr., who besides died with Chin that day. That dusty softball Chin had kept astatine location is included among the trove of keepsakes successful the 9/11 museum's collection.

Not each of the donated artifacts are connected behalf of those who died. Some came from those who survived 9/11.

Linda Raisch-Lopez donated her bloodied patent leather heels to correspond her volition to past connected a time she ran for her life.

As she made her mode down a stairwell from the 97th Floor of the South Tower, she slipped retired of her heels. and walked done the debris successful her bare feet, according to the museum's account. Somewhere connected her mode to a Hudson River pier, she had slipped backmost into her shoes, smearing humor connected the tan leather from her chopped and blistered feet.

Just a tiny portion of the museum's postulation of artifacts is ever connected show due to the fact that determination are conscionable excessively galore to amusement astatine immoderate 1 time. When not connected display, the artifacts are stored successful warehouses, including a hangar astatine JFK airdrome and crossed the Hudson River successful New Jersey. Row aft enactment of shelves are stacked with boxes filled with calamity and remembrance.

“Each portion is simply a small portion of a puzzle," Ramirez said. “Having those important, small pieces of truth, those palpable pieces of information — those bridges to let radical to get engaged successful the communicative — is wherefore we bash what we bash and volition proceed to bash what we do.”

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Associated Press journalists Carrie Antlfinger successful Milwaukee and Robert Bumsted successful New York contributed to this report.

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