The memorial they deserve: the politicized plans for Ground Zero are a travesty

WHAT WAS that thunderous noise? It sounded like my upstairs neighbor's furniture falling, perhaps a bookcase. And why was everyone outside screaming? I wished they would be quiet (I'm not a morning person). Twenty minutes later, it happened again--the booming noise, the screams ... and then the lights went out. The building started to shake. I fell to the ground. When I got up, I couldn't see a thing out my window. Not a ray of light, not a piece of debris, not the leaves that usually press against it. There was only darkness, dirt, and smoke. Just an hour before, it had been a beautiful, sunny day. I grabbed my cat and ran.

Outside, it looked like a nuclear bomb had hit. The once black tar on the streets, and the green benches and trees that constituted Battery Park, were covered with white. Shoes were strewn along the path, and empty baby carriages had been abandoned. People were running, and couldn't stop to pick things up.

Amidst the hysteria and screaming people, I picked a direction and ran, along the water, heading toward the tip of Manhattan. Out of the blue, Coast Guard rescue ferries appeared, and I jumped into one, along with about ten other people. A 15-year-old girl sat on the side of the ferry, her hands clasped in prayer. She crossed herself. No one spoke, but all had tears in their eyes. The air from the first fallen tower was thick. It was hard to breathe. Once we were a few yards out into the water, the second tower, which appeared to have been tilting in our direction, fell. It had not fully hit the ground before a Coast Guard worker suggested that we say a prayer for all those who had just died. We prayed. I swallowed hard.

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We made our way to a triage center in New Jersey, where we spent the day listening to the radio for updates on the number of deaths. We sat across the river watching helplessly as the towers burned. I stayed with strangers the next few nights until I made my way to the house of relatives. The apartment building was closed for two months. All my furniture had been contaminated and had to be replaced. I dealt with hazardous waste cleaners, agencies, and FEMA inspectors. My office, which was right next to the 7 World Trade Center Building, had one wall blown off. The office was displaced for eight months. But I was lucky. I lived.

Three thousand did not. And now the families of many of them are being forced to resist efforts by the left to hijack the memorial at Ground Zero. The plan? An "International Freedom Center," to be filled with a host of anti-American exhibits and exhibits that have nothing to do with 9/11. Debra Burlingame, sister of a 9/11 pilot whose plane was crashed into the Pentagon, and a member of the board of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, first blew the whistle on these plans in a June 8 article for the Wall Street Journal.

Burlingame noted that a "Who's Who of the human rights, Guantanamo-obsessed world" would be programming the International Freedom Center, with exhibits contemplated on topics such as Jim Crow, the Holocaust, the genocide of American-Indians, and pictures from the Abu Ghraib scandal. The message? We have to understand why all these events occurred in order to gain insight into why we were attacked. Seminars will be held at the IFC, presumably explaining how America brought 9/11 on herself and why the terrorists hate us.

The International Freedom Center is to be by far the largest tenant at the World Trade Center Memorial Cultural Complex. It will cover approximately 300,000 square feet, amidst a designer park with foliage, waterfalls, and retail shops. And the Memorial Center itself? Well, that will be squirreled away underground, in an area of only 50,000 square feet: one-sixth the size of the Freedom Center. Moreover, one will have to pass through the International Freedom Center and all its propaganda in order to get to the actual memorial, where the names of those killed will be listed and artifacts from the site will be displayed.

The families of those killed or displaced on 9/11, survivors, neighbors, and others are understandably outraged. They argue that the site is hallowed ground. It should be a place to honor and remember the dead, including those brave firemen, policemen, and other heroes who gave their lives that day. Our ongoing culture wars can be conducted elsewhere. The site where the towers fell should pay appropriate homage to those who lie dead as the result of the terrorist attack.

It's not too late to put the center's space to more appropriate use. Because the ground beneath the fallen towers is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, decisions about the site are being made by an alphabet soup of agencies, boards and commissions ultimately answerable to the state of New York and Governor George Pataki.

Inspired by Burlingame, a coalition of family groups and other opponents have started an organization called Take Back the Memorial, (www.takebackthememorial.org) to oppose the hostile takeover of the site. It has been coordinating protests and petitions, but so far, the cries of the 9/11 families are falling mostly on deaf ears.

Three exceptions are New York congressmen Peter King, Vito Fossella, and John Sweeney. They have joined in demanding a more appropriate memorial. On August 16, the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York officially withdrew its support for the memorial site plans, citing the inclusion of the Freedom Center. Feeling the heat, Governor Pataki has told the Freedom Center that it has until September 23, 2005, to address the objections of the 9/11 families. However, it is not clear what will be the consequences for failing to do so.

How will we memorialize the victims of 9/11? The answer ultimately tells us nothing about them, or about 9/11 itself. But it will tell us a lot about ourselves.

Deborah Weiss is an attorney and political consultant in Washington, D.C.

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