Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

10 Years Later: “Essential Acts of Witness”

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I’ve been thinking about the tenth anniversary of 9/11 for a year, especially about a 2003 story by Tom Junod, published in Esquire, called “The Falling Man.”  The story is about a photo of an unidentified man plunging from the World Trade Center — one of the many people who jumped from the buildings to die in the open air rather than die in flames inside — and how people reacted to the photo. Some thought the photo was too disturbing to be published. The family of one man who was thought for a time to be the Falling Man reacted with anger. They saw a deliberate jump as a “betrayal of love,” in Junod’s words. To them, the man in the photograph wasn’t doing everything in his power to get home to his loved ones. He had given up hope and left them, even if it was just a second or two before he would have been torn from them anyway. They wanted to think of their relative fighting to return to them until the very last second.

Junod writes of “essential acts of witness” in a paragraph about the role of photo-journalism, which starts out with a reference to the photos of Nazi death camps in World War II:

“… the pictures that came out of the death camps of Europe were treated as essential acts of witness, without particular regard to the sensitivities of those who appeared in them or the surviving families of the dead. They were shown, as Richard Drew’s photographs of the freshly assassinated Robert Kennedy were shown. They were shown, as the photographs of Ethel Kennedy pleading with photographers not to take photographs were shown. They were shown as the photograph of the little Vietnamese girl running naked after a napalm attack was shown. They were shown as the photograph of Father Mychal Judge, graphically and unmistakably dead, was shown, and accepted as a kind of testament. They were shown as everything is shown, for, like the lens of a camera, history is a force that does not discriminate. What distinguishes the pictures of the jumpers from the pictures that have come before is that we — we Americans — are being asked to discriminate on their behalf. What distinguishes them, historically, is that we, as patriotic Americans, have agreed not to look at them. Dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of people died by leaping from a burning building, and we have somehow taken it upon ourselves to deem their deaths unworthy of witness — because we have somehow deemed the act of witness, in this one regard, unworthy of us.”

“Witnessing” has always seemed crucial to me. The post I wrote last year about 9/11 was called “Thoughts on 9/11: The Devil Is in the Details.” In it, I wrote:

“It’s easy to become inured to any big story, no matter how horrifying.  Eventually, it becomes something in a history book. But an individual’s heart-breaking story — one that might never merit a line in a book or a newspaper article — is always a shocking reminder that the disaster is made up of hundreds, thousands or even millions of stories just as unbearable.”

I then wrote about some WWII and 9/11 stories of which I’d recently heard and by which I’d been very affected. (It was shortly after that, while still thinking of the need to record individual stories,  that I re-read and bookmarked “The Falling Man.”) My preoccupation with the small-scale story isn’t anything new. I’ve written about it in terms of the Holocaust more than once, including this post about Polish Jews and Auschwitz from September 2008.

But I was preoccupied with the concept way before that, even when I was in high school in New Jersey in the ’80s with an internship of sorts at a local newspaper. It wasn’t much of an internship. I came in just once a week and tried, but completely failed, to make myself useful to some music critics. I was too young to drive, there was no public transportation, and I sometimes had trouble getting a ride. After I missed one too many internship days because no one wanted to drive me, a critic and editor took me aside and berated me for not being serious enough. “Why do you want to be a journalist anyway?” they said. I didn’t know how to answer that. I’ve always had trouble saying why I like the things that I like. I just like them! It comes naturally to me. In my mind, other people should explain to me why they don’t like these things.  Anyway, as I recall, I answered, “I like true stories better than fiction.”

One true story is that on September 11, 2001, I worked for Lehman Brothers, then located at the World Financial Center, across the street from the World Trade Center. After I left our building, I stood on the street in a crowd and watched people falling from the towers. I still remember what they were wearing. One man wearing khakis, a white shirt, and a tie, but no jacket — I thought he had to be a bond trader — made movements like he was trying to resist the fall. Around me, people were getting hysterical. I get hysterical after emergencies, when it’s safe. Getting hysterical during emergencies can be fatal. I instinctively went with the spirit of an old punchline, “Who you gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?” and decided that my eyes were lying. The people weren’t jumping deliberately, I reasoned. They must have been killed in the crash and afterwards fell from the big hole in the building. That was terrible, but not quite as terrible as someone deliberately jumping. I stuck to this fiction for days.  But I think deep down I knew it was a fiction, so I studied the scene carefully for several long minutes, unlike one of my colleagues who turned her back the moment she realized what was happening. She said to me, “How can you look?” and I answered, “How can you not look? This is what is happening!” I felt that someone, somewhere, might someday need information about these poor people who were plunging into history, and what if everyone looked away or forgot? So I watched long enough to memorize the scene, until I had to get back to the business of communicating by BlackBerry with the London-based colleague who fortunately told me to start walking away from the buildings, meaning my little group of people was out of danger when the Trade Center collapsed.

To me, telling the true story — even belatedly — is a way to honor the dead. I think it shows respect for what they had to endure. I felt that way five years after 9/11, when I was on the scene of a terrible accident. I was walking the dogs around midnight early in May when I heard what sounded like an explosion. Across the street, a motorcycle had collided with a bus. I ran over and saw the motorcyclist lying on his back. Another man who had been right on the spot was already on the phone with emergency services reporting the accident and trying to control the crowd that gathered, most of whom were also calling for help. So I sat down with the motorcyclist. He was breathing in a raspy way and his eyes were open. I was scared that I might hurt him if I held his hand, so I patted him very carefully and told him help was almost there. I kept patting him for what felt like ages. A fire engine finally roared up and I got up in a daze (saying nothing helpful to the rescuers to my lasting regret), went back home, washed the blood off my hands and stayed up all night convincing myself that there would be a happy ending. I kept checking the local news sites for reports of a man being saved after an accident. I wanted to know what hospital he was at so I could bring him flowers and tell him how glad I was that he was okay. Instead, I found an article saying that he died after hours of efforts to save him. He was an FBI agent, and his boss was quoted about how devastated his colleagues were by his loss. His survivors included his parents, siblings and a girlfriend. I cried, and then I called the FBI and left a message for the boss. I said I’d been there and he could call me and I’d try to answer any questions. When he called, I wasn’t able to answer every single question and I had to tell him some upsetting details, but I was also able to tell him that the agent wasn’t alone, not for a second. A lot of people were worried for him and there were easily a dozen who stayed until help arrived. That was the thing I thought was most important.  The boss asked if he could give my number to the family, and eventually the girlfriend called. The parents never did. When it’s your own personal loss, you might not want to know everything, but that doesn’t mean someone else shouldn’t be prepared to testify as to what happened if needed.

It might seem contradictory, but I’m not linking to the obituaries or providing the name of the victim, lest family or friends stumble upon it unexpectedly and feel upset. They’ve already taken the opportunity — or deliberately passed on the opportunity — to hear what happened, and because this isn’t part of a larger event that’s relevant to large numbers of people, I won’t give every detail. But if anyone were to come across this and figure out who I’m talking about, s/he should know that not a week goes by when I don’t think of the agent and hope that his family and friends are doing as well as can be expected, just like not a week goes by when I don’t think of the people who died on 9/11. I feel like it’s my job to remember them all, just so there is one additional person on earth who does.

I will have another post on the actual anniversary of 9/11. Here is a list of my previous posts on the topic.

And, going back to some of my remarks at the beginning of this post, here are links to my posts about bearing witness to the Holocaust.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Wendy: every year I – well not look forward, but you know what I mean- to your 9/11 posts. They are personal and meaningful & essential witness bearing. I wrote my thesis on the role of the artist in post-Holocaust texts. And their role is to bear witness. Thanks again for another essential piece of writing.

    • I’m intrigued by your thesis topic and I will tell MrB about it. He was just on a panel where some people were questioning whether certain New Yorker articles were too literary/poetic when it came to 9/11. He feels that writers witness things through writing, artists through art, photographers through photography, etc. One does what one is capable of doing.

  3. Thank you for sharing this. I am rendered speechless, so I’m not sure how even to respond. I am just grateful you have given these people and these important moments in time a voice in history.

  4. Fantastic, beautifully written article Wendy. I watched the towers come down in real time, on TV in Melbourne with abject horror.
    I would have jumped.

  6. I totally understand what you are saying in this post.

    I think what you have written about, bearing witness to what is happening is probably why I force myself to watch endless hours of news events online and on tv when it is a big story that is happening. I want to bear witness and say, “Yes, I saw that.”

    Yet, if something happens in front of me? Which leads to death or someone hurt? I have to look away if not get away. I would rather remove myself from the situation because being there is too intense for me. I would look, see the event and what is happening, and then remove myself from the event if at all possible. I guess it is the survival instinct in my kicking in.

    I wish I could be the person to sit with the dying person so they are not alone but I have found that is not something I can do and “survive”. By “survive” I mean keep my sanity afterward in a case like that. I am too sensitive to how others feel around me (I take on their emotions) and situations like that so it would haunt me and affect me for way too long afterward.

    I suppose the tv screen, watching the news from afar, is something totally different in my mind…it set me apart while dragging me emotionally into the moment since I feel anxiety/horrified/sad while watching events like 9/11 on tv.

    I am really glad you wrote this post and shared how you felt on the topic.

    • I wouldn’t normally run towards the scene of an accident either but I was RIGHT there and I sort of had to. You never know what you might do…

      • Totally understand. I think it may depend on the situation. Would I leave a person on their own if hurt? That I doubt. But in a crowded situation with many people over helping and such…I might just “look away” because the situation would be chaotic.

  8. Wendy: What a beautiful post. Your story about sitting with the FBI agent in the hours before he died is so poignant – chilling. Junod\’s quote is some beautiful writing (and very thought provoking). As is your piece here. It gives me so much to think about. Thank you for this…

  9. I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that I’ve left NYC, in part, because of September 11th. The city never again was able to hold me like a mother and reassure me that everything was gonna be alright. My “lying eyes” told me otherwise.
    So now I sit on the beach in the sun and watch children splash in the surf with tears running down my face thinking of that day when I saw the towers fall…
    I’ll be back to visit once the dust in my mind settles.
    God bless you, Mr B and your terrific family. Including, of course, the pups!
    XO

  11. Wendy, what a beautiful and moving piece. Telling us about the accident with the motorcyclist and sitting with him until help came is very powerful and honest and touching and it is a profound reminder of how important it is to bear witness and remember and talk about the human face of tragedy. Thank you for posting this and giving us the opportunity to read your words.

  13. This post hurt to read. But I think they are two incredible stories that I’m glad you shared.

    This may sound awful, but I remember being in middle school (a small private one) when the planes hit and the news coverage was spamming the same burning images. I was in PE class and they rolled in a CRT on one of those ‘teacher’ carts. We all stopped, and watched. Heartbreaking.

    As a student of psychology now, I commend you for overcoming one of the most fallible of human traits – the bystander effect. I think it says a lot about an individual to put themselves in a position of vulnerability and to be exposed to the horrors of mortality and tragedy.

  14. @Brie (I can’t squeeze in another reply above), I have walked away from situations where they were clearly covered by a multitude of people. I’m not going to stand there and gawk or be the 80th person to call 911 (actually the many calls to 911 on behalf of the motorcyclist caused a lot of stress and confusion…I have a lot of bad feelings about 911 and how it is run). Definitely…I don’t believe in standing around for no reason. If there’s no way to help, keep moving, I’d say!

  15. well Paul’s got it pretty much right – that artists just have to keep on doing their thing. Because that’s what they do. It’s their job! I’m just waiting for a Wendy B trip to NZ so we can discuss in more detail (& drink feijoa vodkas!)

  16. You are such a great writer. And you are so correct. Thank you for bearing witness, and for writing this post, neither of which could have been easy, for those of us who were not in New York, DC or Pennsylvania but still felt deeply affected by those events 10 years ago.

  17. I applaud your having the courage to look. My own recollection of that morning is filtered through a bit of videotape that seemed on an endless loop in an auditorium on my campus. Classes were NOT canceled and yet students were unable to focus on the tasks at end. I took my classes to this auditorium and am haunted by the continual loop of this tape and the reassurance that a young awkward student in my class, who told me that surely NORAD was on top of the situation.

  19. Thanks for all of your moving and meaningful writing on 9/11. It’s my birthday, and I just didn’t know what to do with myself yesterday. I was in NYC when it happened, and am now in San Francisco, so I couldn’t really figure out how to honor the event. I couldn’t bring myself to write about it on my blog, so I’ve appreciated your writing about it on yours. That has helped me feel like I’m not alone in my heaviness and sorrow.

  20. what a beautiful piece wendy…i found my eyes welling up with tears…not only for all those who lost their lives on 9/11…but for this agent…who didn’t have to be alone…thanks to you…and for the families…i have always looked forward to your 9/11 posts…
    i’ve always said it is one thing to watch events happening on your television…a whole different thing when experiencing it…
    “telling the true story — even belatedly — is a way to honor the dead. I think it shows respect for what they had to endure.” – so so true…