I was in Atlanta when the planes hit the two towers. I had just been there for a couple of weeks, acclimatizing myself to the city and the LL.M. program at Emory Law School. Everything went smoothly, I instantly made a lot of now friends, Americans, Europeans, Asians.
The world appeared to be a pretty safe place, at least that was my impression then. The Berlin wall had been torn down, the Iron Curtain fallen, the West and the East allegedly reconciled, nuclear disarmament. Although there was warfare around the world, World Peace did not seem a dream but an achievable goal.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 therefore hit me with all their reality and brutality. As for so many others, my dream of a peaceful world was shattered, and I felt as though I had just been a very naïve European citizen up until then who simply got very lucky.
I remember the assemblies on Campus that day and the days that followed, at the law school, in church, everyone seeking for information, for consolation, for re-assurance. I remember the evening of 9/11 at a friend’s house with several people from the law school, trying to call or otherwise contact their relatives and friends in New York who had been working in the towers. And I remember the fear I felt when America decided to go to war on terrorism. Dark clouds over Middle Earth. Until today.
And here I stand today with my family at the very place where the towers once stood, looking at the magnitude of the memorial, commemorating the tragedy. Then we take the elevator to the Observatory on the new tower, overlooking the city, and I look at my children, who point their little fingers into all directions with so much excitement, focusing on the moment, unconcerned by the past.
