Jonathan marwil teaches a class on how the victims of 9 11 terror attacks are remembered, a photograph from a 9 11 victim falling from the north tower of the World Trade Center. Okay. Lets begin. So far what they have been focusing on, first of all, was the film, the images in the film done by two brothers, French Brothers 9 11. So we have looked at what . Images of the buildings and noticeably images of firefighters because they were the main focus of the film. And then last week we started talking about the 9 11 commission report. That is, how was the event investigated . And were going to continue on with that on thursday this week. What we havent looked at and what you might think is in some ways not appropriate to look at are the dead. And the dead of this event, when you think about it, if you have thought about it very much, theyre in a rather unusual position visavis the dead of other either terrorist attacks or attacks by political regimes or armies on populations, and that is, theyre not visible. We have no bodies. You think about it. Almost all the bodies in new york were incinerated. They took out parts of bodies afterwards and one or two whole bodies they found, believe it or not. There are no bodies at shanksville, pennsylvania. And i have not seen pictures of the bodies injured as well as dead of the pentagon, though im sure there are some pictures out there somewhere. But in new york, its a grave site. Ground zero is a grave site without any bodies. And whats so interesting is theyre unseen. The most obvious example of a dead person is this man as yet not certainly identified. Possibly identified, not certainly. He is on his way to death. As were some 200 to 300 more people. No one knows how many people jumped from the twin towers. Most of them, by the way, from the north tower hit first. Smoking while the south tower was then struck and went down first. Okay . Most of the jumpers were from the north tower. And as i say, nobody knows exactly. Estimates 2 to 300, but that represents roughly 10 of the People Killed in the World Trade Center who chose to jump rather than suffocate, be burned to death, whatever. Perhaps some accidentally fell or somehow fell, you know, they were somehow nudged. They didnt intend to jump. But most of the people it seems who were seen by onlookers, people were there in the streets below saw a lot of these people. It seemed that they jumped. That they made a deliberate and in some cases we know that people jumped together holding hands. These are not people being pushed. They decided to jump. And lord knows one can understand why. The death by suffocation or by fire, noticeably by fires, terrible cause of death. Now, today, you were to have read the article by tom juneau, published in esquire 2003 about this particular photograph which is a set of photographs. The man falling almost not all the way down but the photographer, richard drew, took snapped a bunch of pictures, and so hes in various positions. Juneau wrote a piece about this particular image, and tried through investigation to identify who this man was. Very difficult to do when you think about it. In the piece, you may recall he uses the phrase that this photo and others like it were iconic but not permissible. Now, this photo appeared on i think page 7 of the New York Times on september 12th. I remember seeing it. In fact, i have it. In my office, i have that complete issue of september 12th. Long before i knew i was going to teach a course like this. It never appeared again. It never appeared in i shouldnt say it never. It appeared again in a New York Times book review in 2007, but it was also published in other papers. It was seen on cbs and then immediately taken off the air waves in the United States. Did not appear in magazines. There was a kind of voluntary censorship, voluntary decision it should not be seen. If you picked up a european magazine or newspaper in the days following 9 11, let alone the weeks, you would have seen this picture or others like it. Europeans did not have any trouble or were not trouble i should say at least publications were not troubled printing this and other pictures. So i guess a good place to start with this situation, or this issue of the dead, is to look at this image and say or ask, what is impermissible . At the same time if its iconic, is there not a kind of contradiction that something that would be iconic, that would have the value of an icon would be an icon not to be seen . Now, thats more than one question. Lets start with, perhaps, the more immediate of the two. Whats impermissible . Why should this not be allowed to be seen . You might want to think, by the way or recall, remember what jules naudet says going in to the tower with the firemen in the north tower. And he decides not to photograph a body at the kind of the doorway to the tower. This should not be seen, he says in the film. Maybe that would give you a handle. What do you just instinctively think is the problem with this being sort of a forbidden image, as if it were, you know, some sexual image that people are not allowed to see one time . Yeah. Well, in the article it kind of talks about and my reaction, as well, is that that person has a family and they would be severely hurt by seeing that if they recognized their Family Member, husband, father. If that person had a family. Remember, we dont know for sure who he is. Its a male, undoubtedly. That seems to be certain. But even the article goes from one possibility to another possibility but is not even sure of that. This could have been a bachelor. Okay . Do you think its but even if you assume that you know who it is, okay, should that have made it impermissible to be identified since the family and friends of the family and other Family Members know that person died that day . So would that make a difference even . Yeah . I think its kind of a difference in the way the people perceive when someone dies by, like, something that they cant help, whereas if they choose to commit suicide, even though it might have been so bad they knew they werent going to live, i still think a Family Member or anyone who knew them would have had a hard time coping with the fact that this they died by jumping out of the building ofn suspected to be this man, what the daughter said when she was interviewed by the journalist thats quoted in the article . I dont remember the exact words but it was something along the lines of, like, thank goodness hes not going to hell or something. Not quite, not quite. Because i thought they were its a sin to try to in the catholic religion, suicide is a sin. Okay . That is you know, you might wind up where you dont want to be. Its sort of true. Do you recall the words . Yeah. She said, that piece of shit is not my father. Yeah, yeah. And and the mother doesnt want to think so either though shes not as strikingly eloquent as her daughter about the matter. And clearly, or seemingly clearly, they its not that they have a problem with the mans death because they know hes probably dead, but that they dont want to believe that he would have committed suicide. Thats what makes him that piece of shit, as the article says. We dont have to use the word again, but the point is its not death itself. And are we the point you raise, which i think is quite a fair point, that lets say he could be definitively identified, you know, if you were a Family Member of that person, would you really want to see that . Well, no. You probably would not. But we dont seem in america to have a problem with seeing dead bodies from wars or crimes or traffic accidents or fires. Do you think theres let me put it this way. Whats the difference between the man not dead yet, he will be soon. Whats the difference between someone dead from september 11th as opposed to seeing a person dead from any number of other causes in this country that we seem not to have a problem with. And certainly, of course, movies show terrible images of the dead all the time but lets not even talk about fictive media, just talk about real life. We are almost bombarded with images of the dead and badly injured. I mean, we are warned. Sometimes tv programs will say, you know, disturbing images. If you dont want to be disturbed, dont watch the program but they show them. Yeah . I think when youre talking about war or an accident, the dead body almost that was what happened and there wasnt another choice. Right . When you go to war, you are expected not expected but you take that risk of youre going to get shot, theres going to be a dead body. This, these are normal everyday citizens who had no choice except to jump unless they wanted to suffocate to death. So in a way we didnt with these people, if youre looking as a family, you dont expect them jumping from a building but going to a war, you almost expect that phone call one day. Fair enough. Would that argument then sort to speak include why jules naudet does not want to photograph that person when he goes to the north tower . Persons already dead. Probably not identifiable easily. But he doesnt want to do that. Go ahead. Well, we talked about with the naudet brothers how he wasnt the normal photographer. So it struck him as something hes almost like an every day citizen seeing a body of somebody that just died. Whereas we talked about if the brother was there, he was a photographer and probably we cant say for sure but more inclined as a photo journalist or a cameraman to see that and to film it. He probably would have. Then the question is do you think they would have included it in the film . Lets say he had shot it. They shot 175 hours of footage through the training of the firemen and the fires and the buildings themselves. The question is, would they have included that image even if gideon had shot it and when jules did not. Would they have included it in the film, or do you think theres something about the dead of september 11th that separates them out from other dead . Sir . Well, i dont think theres necessarily a difference between the dead of september 11th. For example, we are able to see the image of father judge who died on september 11th. Yes. I think theres something intimately personal about seeing someone in the act of dying as opposed to being dead already. To see the life in them being taken as opposed to, like, their person or inanimate body. Theres something, you know, we can relate to them. Theres more immediate empathy in seeing alive one moment and then dead the next. I think thats why the image of the falling man is so taboo because its the immediacy of the incoming death we find so troubling as opposed to the image of someone who is dead already. Do you think i like the point. I think we would all agree thats a good distinction to make. Do you think we would have trouble because i have certainly seen such pictures, seeing someone jumping from the San Francisco bay bridge . Golden gate bridge . I have certainly seen photographs of people jumping. Is that different . I think thats different in a number of ways. One being that its not as inherently violent, the image of them, for example, crashing into the water would be less disturbing than seeing the falling man hitting the ground. Then you have the fact that hes forced to jump, whereas someone who is jumping from the voluntary act, yeah. Voluntarily committing suicide. Yeah . I think theres something about the actual event of september 11th that affected the whole country. Even if youre not a Family Member of someone that died 9 11, still affected you. And the nation felt more vulnerable so i think kind of everyone is more sensitive about the issue even if they werent directly affected or one of the Family Members because the whole nation was affected and everyone is more sensitive. We felt more vulnerable. Is somehow that sense of vulnerability we felt, which certainly was part of the experience of that day and lingered on for many days after, as the country worried about is there going to be another attack, everybody thought there would be. I was telling another class this morning, theres Something Interesting about the days following september 11th in 2001 and the days following december 7th, 1941. And that is that if you really read in the literature, go back and check it out, you realize that everybody expected that the next stop of the japanese was california. They werent going to stop in hawaii. They were coming. And people were very on edge that that was not the event itself. But it was finished with pearl harbor. And the same thing i think was true, i know it was true after september 11th, the next few days everybody said, you know, is there another city, another set of planes coming, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So that sense of vulnerability. Lets hold on to that but theres some more hands. Yeah . I think it separates itself from other pictures that could be similar to this, like someone jumping off a bridge, because this was a result of an act of terror opposed to just, like, something every day life like a car accident or Something Like that. So this man was forced to make the decision to take his own life because of the terrorist attack. Fair enough. I mean, i think that says it, that it explains or offers an explanation that it was an act of terror. But i wonder if, in fact, that is really the reason why we dont want to see it. That we know that the immediate cause is the burning building, and that that was created by an act of terror. I wonder if that really is what is disturbing us about it. Yeah . I think just going along on that note, i mean, as opposed to other people maybe even someone else jumping from the building, i think people compare that immanuel when they see it, with other images from the day. If you take that image, per se, me personally, im picturing in my mind also the burning building and the plane hitting the building. I think pairing that all together kind of makes it seem a lot worse maybe than the still image itself. If you look at it, its not such a im going to cringe at that image. I cant look at it. What the response it invokes from your mind is it let me just be provocative. I agree with you. The image is, yes, youre aware that that man is hurdling to his death. You cant escape that. But what drew the photographers attention in part is the geometry. I mean, theres something aesthetically quite intriguing about the geometry of that building. The lines, the verticality of that entire image, the body going down. By the way, thats the most commonly that was the image chosen by the times, where hes in vertical flow with the building. On drews the other images, hes in a different position. And none of them is quite as vertical. And in fact, a couple of them hes flailing around, as you might expect. But this one, theres something i dont want to say peaceful. That would be going too far but hes not struggling. As if he dove down to the earth by his own choice and happened to line up with the building. That is, theres something aesthetically right, however grotesque the overall setting is for this moment happening. Yeah . I think the disturbing part is that he does look graceful. Theyre not going to pick a photo where hes flailing or in pain or struggling. Theyre going to pick a photo where it feels like youre watching him take the last few moments of his life escape a burning, chaotic, smoke filled terror above him and just take the last few moments of clean air. I think thats the most disturbing part. We dont think about taking that choice in our everyday lives. Uhhuh. Graceful, yes. I like that word, too. And clearly the choice. I mean, it is not a choice that any of us would ever choose to be confronted with. Though when you think about it, many people are. People facing their own death. Maybe one of you has a grandparent or somebody very, other, and the doctor says, well, i can do another operation. Ill give you three more weeks, and the grandparent says, huhuh. I have had enough of it. Anybody have that experience with not wanting to . Well, i did with my mother when she was very ill. The doctor said, oh, yeah, we can operate again. All they could promise her was a couple more months and not very pleasant months, so she just chose to die. So its the choosing of death in a certain manner she didnt have to jump from a building obviously to die, but the choosing of death over continuing to live is not all together unusual. Yeah . I think part of the reason that its like so taboo and emotional is because, like, its the really only picture that makes any connection with like how awful the people in the building were struggling. Like, you see the burning building and you see the plane crashing in. You think, this is terrible. This is a horrible thing that happened. But when you think about the fact that people made the conscious decision to jump out of a building, that really brings you face to face with how much they suffered inside of that building. Or maybe they hadnt suffered but knew they were going to. Yeah. Theres no evidence this man has been on fire. Right. It just makes them more like real people to you, like, rather than i dont know, draws a deeper connection i think. I think you made a very fair point. Yeah . Go ahead. Just to go along with that, its not its not that thats just the only picture of people inside. Thats the only picture of victims usually you will see at all. Yes. We dont have very much. This is not a guy surrounded by burning oil, jet fuel and metal. This is a guy in a very clean, open, free space. Theres nothing inhibiting what you see is about to happen, and you have to accept it. Its the only connection you have. That leads, doesnt it, in a certain way to moving from the impermissible to the iconic, an iconic image. I dont want to get to the contradiction between being iconic and impermissible. Lets talk about, if i said to you, if i started out today by saying, and juneau is not the only one to have said such a thing, that this image really is iconic of september 11th, at least in new york, this is the image that really establishes what september 11th is all about. Thats what an icon this is something we really heed. Do you think do you think thats true . Now, thats separate theyre connected finally, but thats separate from saying its impermissible. Do you think if somebody wanted to say give me an image of 9 11, you might say, well, there it is. There is the standard image. Is that iconic, though . Does that rise to a certain level of ultimately getting at the truth, which is what icons for . Ultimately getting at the truth of what september 11th was. And of course, that and many images like it, were the images we were constantly come barded bombarded with that day and ever since. Yeah . I dont think it should be the iconic image because i think its more of an image of destruction. This one youre talking about . Yeah. You see images like of buildings collapsing even with someone purposefully. Obviously not in an act of terror but if a building had to come down. You see pictures like that. But you dont see a human aspect of it. When most people look at that picture, they probably dont think about the people inside where as you look at the picture of the falling man, it puts a human face on 9 11 and you think more of the victims, which is what i think it should be. Well, when we see that, do we do you think we imagine the people inside with that image . You know . If you can you were very young then, obviously. But when you saw all those pictures that day, you know, running on tv and then the next day and the next day, did they set off your mind imagining what people inside must have felt or was the picture itself the horribleness and the pictures of the buildings falling that your imagination just stayed there with the buildings . Your imagination didnt travel inside. This picture you cant help let me submit you cant help but be imagining in looking at it of what is about to happen to him. And is that what is terrible about that picture . Because youre in your minds eye, you see it coming. Within a matter of seconds whats going to be of him. Where as you can never quite grasp the people inside because you cant see it. Its left only in your imagination and, therefore, not as powerful . Or more powerful . What do you think . I think for me the fact that i was in fifth grade when it happened and never been to new york at that point, id seen pictures of the towers before but ive never been inside so i couldnt draw that i mean, we thought about the people when we were sitting in class in Elementary School watching it on tv. But we didnt we didnt have any idea what it looked like inside. So for us, it was that iconic image of the tower being hit. And then also later on after the fact, the lasting, i think, image is every september 11th anniversary they did thought beacons of light that went up in the new york skyline. Yes. And i think that was the other lasting image that i have from the tower perspective. Not even talking about the pentagon. Well, when you were in the fifth grade, you were what, 10 . 11 . 10, 11, yeah. Okay. Do you recall, was it that kind of picture that is towers being struck or both of them burning that, so to speak, shocked impressed you or the buildings one and then the other coming down . For me, it was the second tower being we saw the plane flying towards it, and to me its that image. It wasnt i mean, the towers coming down was terrible but we i dont know. For me, it was the plane right before it struck. Okay. Okay. But lets go back to the falling man or the jumper. More thoughts on what makes this iconic. What makes this so so what . Important. First here and then over there. People could argue its iconic because of the uniqueness and i think most people if you said september 11th would probably associate the other image, or some sort of image of the towers being hit or on fire with that day. But because its so unique, it kind of brings Something Different to the table. Its not an image a lot of people capture. I mean, theres a lot of views and a lot of shots of the towers getting hit and being on fire but thats like the only picture thats been published thats of a man jumping from the building. All right. Before we go over here, you remind me of something, and i want to bring it up and ask you. Richard drew, the photographer. In 1968, in june of 1968, what was it about june 4th or 5th, he was in los angeles when Bobby Kennedy was giving a speech at a hotel, and that was the night that after kennedy finished his speech and went down, he was going through the kitchen to go out to the car that was going to speech, and he probably had the democratic nomination wrapped up at that point. Okay . He was shot and killed. And drew was one of the photographers there and took a picture, which has been seen many times of the dead or dying Bobby Kennedy lying on the floor in the kitchen of this hotel. That was printed and has been printed many times. How do you compare that, in terms of the shock. And by the way, that image is about the only image of kennedy lying on the floor. There were a couple of other photographers there. They might have taken a similar image, but no one got it in the act of shooting, per se, as i recall. But its the image on the floor of the dead or near dead kennedy. Is that an impermissible image to be revealed constantly . I dont know, i guess. But i think because of the context and the response the day itself of september 11th, looking at the picture with no context, you dont know how high he jumped from or much about it but knowing its related to that event i think is what makes it so much worse in the minds of a lot of people. Interestingly, people have argued im not suggesting rightly or wrongly because historians are only prophets of the past, not of the future, but have argued that was a significant turning point, those shots in the history of america, that if kennedy had not been shot and the election had gone on, he would have won over nixon and the history of the United States would have been different. In fact, some would argue that his death at that time was more pivotal in terms of changing or not changing things than his brothers death in 1963. But you can read about that and decide for yourself. Yeah . Yes. So about this picture, i think at least for me, drawing a lot of parallels you can draw from this man falling from the twin towers. I think the one that pretty much stands out in my mind that i can relive the image of was seeing the buildings actually fall. You know . And then here you see this man sort of falling. Yes, we can build an emotional connection to it. But you know, i would pose a question here and then try to answer it is if the building didnt fall, would this picture still be sort of iconic . Because i can draw parallel between a man falling and the two towers falling down, and therefore making it that much more significant, in my mind. If im seeing this photo as being truly iconic and an event of 9 11. Well, i think youve raised a wonderful question. What and i dont know exactly the time of this, but i think it is before the south tower actually came down. What if they hadnt come down . Would this picture be as disturbing . Forget about the iconic part . Would this be as disturbing to us if the buildings had not fallen . They the fires had gone on. Probably similar number of people would have been dead because i pointed out to you its been pretty well he established that most of the people who died in the twin towers were at the floor of each individual tower where the planes struck or above. The overwhelming number of people below those floors got out under their own steam. Walked out, so to speak. So, you know, whats the impact if the towers dont fall . I think its a wonderful way of reframing the question in terms of trying to find the sense of this picture, what it means to us and why we are so disturbed by it. Yeah . I think if they hadnt fallen, its more disturbing on a personal level because in this image knowing that the towers did come down and see him coming down with the towers in a sense but if they did not come down, the issue of suicide and choosing to take his own life and jumping becomes that much more real because in that matter hes not coming down with the building. Okay. Any other thoughts on that . Yeah . I think if the towers had not come down, it would be less disturbing. Because with the fact that the towers did come down, he becomes all the more important. He embodies all of those dead, you know, who perished in the towers we never got to see. The author relates this image to the tomb of the unknown soldier, all those soldiers we did not know yes. We have no real remains to speak of. That brings back to the picture of kennedys death in that, you know, the uniqueness of kennedy as an individual, as a national figure, distinguishes him from the falling man, because the falling man is everyone. He is everyone that died and the fact of still alive juneau makes that point. We can put ourselves in his shoes and, you know, and then therefore put ourselves in the shoes of everyone who is in the towers. Does that having said that, okay, is there a level at which this picture disturbs us that has less to do with well, i dont want to say less. Lets just say that disturbs us both because its september 11th but independent of that . Now its already been indicated one student indicated that somehow, you know, this is maybe all of us at some point. But all of us wouldnt mind our pictures taken whenever that point might be. But that this particular representation of that point of having to make a choice about life or death is a point at which were very uncomfortable in our own skins with this phenomenon. That is, that this picture has this is a let me try to put this in a clearer way. That there is something threatening about this photo to us. And we may not even be able to articulate what it is but its disturbing us is because in some way or ways it threatened us. Yeah . I think adding to that, such a personal decision that he made, i mean, that i feel like we can understand but that it was taken, like the people photographed it, became the image, like, he didnt have a choice in that matter. He didnt, you know, he couldnt have known. He did have a choice, didnt he . Yeah . I dont think he could have known, like his death and personal choice would become such a public sign. Yeah. Do you since the word has been used now and its certainly part of the inquiry by juneau, do you think that this was suicide . Your understanding of suicide. No. Because, i mean, its clear i think to everyone that there were two choices and both of them were death. He just chose to control his own fate. Does anybody want to see that any differently . Yeah . I think its almost a sign of almost the last hope. If youre there and you look and see theres fire and smoke and people dying around you, theres an open window and know theres firefighters there. I remember wondering why they didnt have the giant trampolines there to try to catch people falling. I think its the last few moments, the last hope, maybe if i jump there will be something down there to catch me. Okay. Yeah . Just going back to your question of whats so threatening about it, i dont know if this is what youre looking at i dont have an opinion about any of this. The falling man is like a business some sort of businessman and the twin towers represented, like, modernity and some sense of advancement of western economies and stuff, and that was crashing down and the businessman is crashing down so its kind of threatening to everyone americans in general about so you think so, we sort of translate this into a metaphor, a metaphor of this image of metaphor of the larger american destructive act that this attack represents. Okay. Any other thoughts on this . Yeah, in the back. I think maybe this picture could be seen as threatening because in a certain way this mans perceived mindset of what you think he chose to do goes against possibly a collective anger that people have. Instead of, you know, choosing to be defiant and stay in the building and wait for hope, he quit. He completely resigned. At least thats what i think the image seems to show. And that might conflict with what a lot of people were feeling at the time on a national level, on a Foreign Policy level even. So i think that might have upset some people perhaps. It is interesting that his wife we already had the quote about the daughter. His wife, if you may recall from the article, she says that she wants, quote, to clear my husbands name. Meaning that she doesnt want it to be him because that would mean he committed suicide and being a good catholic he shouldnt do that. So she clearly interpreted it, or perhaps just thought the local priest or the church was going to interpret it, as suicide. But do all of you agree with what was said over here . Its clearly not suicide . Its choice of two deaths and how can that be suicide . Does anybody want to yes, maam . I dont think its suicide because i think this person that day, those people in the top levels of the tower, their choice of life or death was taken from them. They knew they were going to die and that man chose freedom. He wanted the choice to choose how he was going to die and maybe it is that symbol of hope that maybe he would survive somehow. But a last chance at freedom, i dont want to die because terrorists destroyed my building. I want to die the way i choose. Unfortunately, we dont know what was in his head, and we could construct, you know, any scenario for what he was thinking. He might be saved. The firemen might have some kind of super mat or just a choice of two deaths, one less hideous than the other. Or who knows . We dont know. So all we can really deal with are the interpretive scheme up that people close to these people or investigated these people, what it is they want to construe this to mean. Yeah . Yeah, like you were saying about the interpretive scheme, i feel like the photo threatens the psychological defenses in new york. They talked about it a bit in the article after they decided it wasnt the one man whose daughter had made that statement. They questioned whether it was someone else and the family was like, no, it wouldnt him because his sister was there with him and he wouldnt have left her. So i think its the way like the first family didnt want to think that he had jumped partly because of suicide, and then mentioned that he wouldnt have given up and, like, that he wouldnt have jumped thinking that he, like, wouldnt come home to them. They thought that he would have died like thinking of his wife and his three daughters. And the other man wouldnt have jumped because he wouldnt have left his sister so i think its just i think its different for how we perceive it in terms of how the Family Members of these victims perceive it and how they sort of their brain made them perceive it to be able to cope with it. Perhaps our interpretation of how he perceived it or others are interpreting he perceived it is just an extension of how we perceive it, too. We have to be careful of that. Yeah . Like you said earlier, the people seeing people jumping and that was their first indication of just how horrible it must have been up there. Yeah, yeah. So i think people might be very uncomfortable with the images because if this allows you to see the human side and put yourself in to that position and you can imagine yourself on one of the top floors having make that decision, but you think yourself, would i want to be photographed jumping from the building. I think a lot of people would say no. So maybe thats where kind of some of the discomfort comes from. Yeah. Just from a technical standpoint of the definition of suicide, i think that it is, because youre choosing to take your own life, whether or not the circumstances you are in are favorable or like whether you could keep living on. I guess this guy maybe thought he couldnt so he did decide to take his own life. Its but i think that people obviously look at it like he only had that option, so its not as shameful as jumping off a bridge. He was almost forced in a situation to commit suicide but its not we have to look at it in context. Im not catholic but ive thought at times i should consult with a local priest what the standard was, so to speak. This must have been discussed within catholic circles in 2001. How are these people to be seen . Are they to be considered suicide . Because in one sense, as youre trying to argue, technically perhaps they were but or are they to be seen as people in an impossible situation where suicide is simply not a any longer a relevant category of interpretation . And perhaps any of you who are catholic, if you a priest in the family, close to one, you might want to ask and see what was the understanding at that time. Was there a kind of growing understanding on this matter within the church . As i say, i simply do not know. You had your hand up for a long time. Go on. Yeah. So there was a what the idea of suicide really comes up to me and i think its like page 198, and there was a sort of quote here that they were puzzled, uncertain or scared and when did with they know . When did the moment come that they lost hope . Maybe it came so quick. So there, like, that sense, a very strong sort of emotional statement or like a psychological statement, like when did the people know that were jumpers, know there was absolutely no hope . That they would not be saved . Even on that floor and the towers coming out. Like at what point did they know they didnt actively choose im not going to die this way, im going to die another way. Well, obviously, in any particular case it is not very knowable. One book that was published, 102 minutes i think by jim dwyer which is a reconstruction of what was going on in both towers in the period of time 102 minutes from the first plane hitting the first tower to that first tower coming down and talking to lots of people who survived, there was evidently or you know, continuing a considerable effort to get people out, to help people out. People stayed to help other people out. That is, the urgency of life, that hardwired drive to survive, and thats a very hardwired instinct was operating as long as possible. Then we come to that question, well, when did soandso or any soandsos know, just in some sort of instinctive fashion that survival wasnt in the cards, and that they wanted to choose how they wanted to go . And whether it even was that rational, i dont think were probably ever going to be able to decide. Yeah . I think theres another way to look at this that can maybe show how it wasnt suicide and that if youre pushed off a building, like thats not suicide. And in a sense, like these people were pushed yes, yes. Off the building. I think thats a perfectly good argument to make. This is the end and then jumped. It wasnt it wasnt in any human terms really a choice. I want to move on a little bit. Time is going on. I want to suggest something another way of thinking. Let me put it this way. Another way of thinking about this image. And why it is disturbing, why it is impermissible and why its iconic at the same time. And see how you react. That this picture is more than almost any other kind of image from september 11, certainly anything having to do with the buildings, and we dont have much in the way of images of individuals, it registers a kind of vulnerability. Somebody mentioned this very early on in the discussion today. A profound almost existential vulnerability that we have as humans that we are always damping down in ourselves, but that this image so profoundly touches on what we do not like to consider and that is a kind of existential vulnerability as human beings that we always have at any age, any time. And this picture worms its way into that sense. Any thoughts on that . Im just throwing it out as a thought. Yes, sir . I guess the first thing that strikes me always about this is what will make you feel vulnerable if youre anything like me is it doesnt matter if 3,000 people were in the tower and died, or died in the tower, in the planes and every other situation that happened that day, what it came down to is every person had to make that choice or go that way whether they made that choice or not alone. But good point. Good point but let us say that somehow or another just imagine this, that the photographer shot not the one man but that there were four other people alongside him. Independent not holding hands. We do know some people held hands because people actually saw it and reported it. But there were four other people. Do you think the impact of this picture on you would be the same if you saw four random people as distinguished from one, and if you think there is a difference between four and one, what do you think it is . And does it have anything to do with the point i just made . Yeah . I think theres a difference. I think just having one person theres an intimacy to the photo and delving into his life and the moment hes experiencing that hes going to die, and you as a viewer know hes going to die also. You know as a viewer youre going to die, too. Yes. He is us. Four is not us. One is us. Did you want to add to that . I was going to say, yeah, if there were four people there, you say at least they made the decision together. They knew what was going to happen. But he just seemed so alone in the last couple seconds of life. And i think thats what makes it a little more intense. The famous statement, we live together and everybody dies alone. However you die, you always die your death is alone, even if there were people around. And does this picture, in that sense, work to that understanding . As is it what is so disturbing that it almost isnt september 11th. Its just our situation, the human situation, the mortal situation. Something to think about. I wanted to turn, but not turn entirely away from this to the other piece that i had you read for today. The excerpt, very small excerpt, from this volume called portraits published in 2002 and is a compilation of the 1900 i guess you call them portraits, you might also call them obituaries, but the times didnt like that, but the New York Times starting in the fall as you read in the introduction, starting in the fall of 2001 after september 11th decided to investiga investigate, inquire into who all these people were that died in the twin towers or as many as possible. Finally, what, over 130 reporters worked on this, reporters from every possible field in the times spent some time making phone calls, looking up public records, whatever they could find, to come up with a short statement. These range from five to ten sentences. None of them are very long. Ive looked through the whole book, and i just xeroxed a couple of pages out. I want to say totally randomly, but not quite randomly. And in the foreword, they use the statement, they say these are not really typical obituaries. And that they there is something consoling about these statements. And another point these people, the statements made about them, suggest, quote, the settled nobility of everyday existence. So with that sort of a lead in, let me turn and read to you, for those who didnt bring your thing today, i want to read the one that determined which pages i would choose to show you. I said more or less randomly, not entirely randomly. And this is the one on Josh Rosenthal, a man and a sister grow up. And of course, like the others, its short. Last sunday night, Josh Rosenthal went out for dinner with his sister, helen, and her family to celebrate the coming of fall and the fact that they were altogether again after being apart over the summer. He had just picked up catcher in the rye she said, and he was just adorable utthe relationship between holden and his sister. Thats end of quote. A Portfolio Manager at fiduciary trust, mr. Rosenthal most liked to, quote, play with his nieces, but of course, i would say that, ms. Rosenthal said, thats his sister. He would tease them mercilessly, like he would tease me when i was a little girl. He would also bring them gifts from his many travels, like a stamp with their names in japanese or beautiful chinese robes. Ms. Rosenthal, the sister, who described her only sibling as her best friend, said that the two had been especially close since a twomonth trip they took together through Southeast Asia about 15 years ago where they discovered each other as adults. He wasnt teasing me anymore, she said, end of. Now, is that an obituary . Clearly not, right . You dont know who this guy is except a Portfolio Manager and hes got a sister who loved him. What theyre all like this in one form or another, half dozen others that you read, just each have a different spin, but theyre all like this. And as i said in the introduction, theyre referred to as being consoling. What what do you think that word means . How does it apply to these to these portraits of the dead . Weve been talking about the dead in one context today. Im now shifting your attention to how the dead are going to be remembered at least in this first, you know, kind of exposure of them to memory in the form of these portraits. Yeah . I think this one in particular, its like its more focused on the sister and like her emotions towards josh rather than him as a person. And its almost as though shes like remembering him in a way that she can, like, let go of him and emotionally cope with what had happened to him. Thats very well said. Yeah. So what happens to josh in this therefore, whats the whats the fallout to josh if this is really about his sister . I guess he becomes remembered as his sister remembers him . Okay. Okay. Yeah. Its not really about like him as a person. Well, i dont know how far we want to go with that. You do get a sense of him, even though you might get a sense of his sisters affect more. A hand over here . Yeah. I think building on what she said, its as his sister remembered him but its not these portraits arent painted for me to memorize the victim as of september 11th. You dont want to think of him as someone who died on that day. A lot of the portraits are thinking about the person as they were kind of almost like an obituary except not talking about they were in the twin tower, they were in the plane. Things like that. The book, you know, everybody there was there. Was there. But i think if you just look at it, right, because if you look at one of them and just with no context, its not talking about they were a victim and it was talking about their life. You dont i dont picture it when i was reading them i dont connect it what a great life, too bad they died in the twin tower. I think of it as a celebration or of their personality, and i dont think its nice that they dont talk about how they died in an act of terror. Okay. Yeah . I just think reading through this, is a really great job of showing the human value that we lost that day. It wasnt just a number. It wasnt just an attack on these buildings falling down. It wasnt an attack on our economy, on our system. It was it was more about the people in the building and what they represented. They were just average people. To go and get this little snippet of their lives and bring it out, i think its a much better way to remember them. Like she said, removing the stigma of this person dying september 11th, it doesnt give good credence to what they stood for. Its not them. Due ever read obituaries . I have a few in the past few years. How would you distinguish, then, between the kind of obituaries youve read and this one . I take your point but im just curious then what is the difference between this, the way you would articulate it and the standard obituary . I think the standard obituary is just much more broad. It starts they usually start at the beginning and go through different phases in a persons life. The short obituary not the long one for president s. The short one for the grocer down the street. A few paragraphs or something. I think what these sought to do is focus on one moment and bring that one moment and embody each person in that one moment. I think that it shows how each story that person is going to be remembered. I think that is absolutely right. What kind of moment is it that is consistent in all of these . Can you tease out what kind of moment the investigators were looking for . The reporters investigated, they wrote up, gave their write up to the editor and the editor said yeah thats great or he or she said no go back and lets reframe that differently. What is it that each of these is consistently trying to do even though they are very different lives, people from very different, you know, backgrounds, different occupations . Youre left i think with something very important that is perhaps suggested in that statement ive just read. The nobility of daily existence. What is it that you are left with first and second. Yeah. It is not so much a defining moment in their life as much as how their families and friends would remember them. Or just one single moment that someone would find memorable. What would make it memorable . What gave it member oshorabilit you will . In this one kind of remembering a personal moment with their sibling that kind of maybe when they grew up or moved on or when they just learned something about the other person. The one prior to that where the little girl said oh, hes a keeper. Yes. It might not be the defining moment of the relationship as a whole but its something that the family is going to hold on to forever. Did you believe the little girl actually used that expression . They were fishing so i think i believe it. Ive got a bridge in brooklyn for you, though. There you go. So, yeah. Similar to his point i think they try to portray the victims voice, character, dialogue. Sure enough. There is a certain quote here, he had a devilish grin on his face because he knew i was scared. More bringing more of a personal feel into the lives, like a little segment. It wasnt so much as giving them sort of descriptions on how he was but more like bringing in dialogue between the Family Members and saying, you know, here is how you see him and view him. This is a unique way of writing about each of the victims here. Any other thoughts on a common denominator in these things . I would consider love to be the common element. Okay. They mention the acts of kindness, expressions of love. You see that every story is ultimately positive whether it is hosting barbecues for your neighborhood, getting married, moving to new york to live with a loved one, every story is about the love these individuals who died had for those around them. A very good point. Would you add the word value to that . That each of these were a person of value if only to other people not necessarily to the nation. It went on to show the connections people had to those around them. Yeah. I like that they showed the normalcy of their lives. Yes. The every day existence so to speak. Just every day. So they went on a fishing trip over the weekend, out to dinner with family. These are normal things that happened the nobility of every day existence. Right. I think its well done. Ive read many more than this one. I think in a sense by talk k about so many people that these people touched in their lives or that they had an effect on it makes it seem like there was almost more victims than just the number of deaths. I mean, more people were affected by this and victimized by this event than just like oh, a number of 3,000. These peoples death also had an effect on so many people down the line. It was felt more than just by 2,000, 3,000 deaths. Would that, though, have been achieved if they had just published the kind of straight forward obituary so for example take rosenthal, Josh Rosenthal was what, 41, 42. He graduated from the university of michigan in 1979. He went to new york. He got into what he got into, and he left a loving sister helen. Okay . Your standard obituary because he hadnt done anything famous. He was just a businessman. Would that not have achieved the same thing you are trying to say . To some people maybe. That makes it seem so standard and like okay. Here it is. This is what needs to be written. This is the how many of those would you have wanted to read . None. This kind of makes it so personal and makes you feel for those actual connections that they had not just, i mean, there are a lot of people that if you arent so close with a Family Member or this or that, it makes it seem the positive light in all of it and how much of an effect they actually had on these people that were part of their lives. Okay. I think that also because there were so many people that died that day in the same way there needed to be some way to write these obituaries or pieces about them that would make them stand out and not just make them one of the masses that died in september 11th. I think that is why they approached it in such a nontypical obituary way. Each of these individuals is given a real identity, not an identity of statistics when they were born, where they went to school kind of thing. But identity as a kind of human being. And when you think about that word identity, and then you come back to this and that and the question is, the loss of identity in the actual destruction of the twin towers, the fact that nobody nothing virtually was recovered, it is a death site without bodies. Okay . And what does it mean that in the aftermath there is this quest, a desire to give these people identity just as the reporter for this, what is so important, what is so important it seems, is that we identify this man. Jonathan briely the second one or the first guy norberto but is that important . Is identifying him by name as important as knowing him as an anonymous jumper faced with no alternative . Which is the most important thing to know about this figure, who he was or what he faced . Is his actual identity as a human being significant to anybody else but his family . But is his so to speak the identification of him as a victim precisely like virtually all of the others with no chance is that what should matter . Heavy question. Anybody want to lighten that up in some way . Give a thought to this . Yeah. Yes, i think thats a really tough question to sort of answer. I think from a societal viewpoint and in the context of the event his identity is actually what we can see here, this unknown man jumping from a building and what we can put in a context of 9 11. I think what we want to strive for is to actually see him as a person without the context of 9 11. I think thats what we all want to sort of eventually strive for is to see this man without him being sort of this jumper out of a building. So when i first saw the picture, my mind immediately went to, i didnt see him as, does he have background, family, his name, his profession. I just saw him as this sort of iconic photo of a man jumping out of a building. Eventually i want to get to the point where i can see him not as this jumper but as someone else like Jonathan Rosenthal in this piece. I think that a lot of it has to do with all these bodies just jumbled under this massive heap of debris and a lot of the bodies were never even found so the families were kind of looking for something concrete to hold on to for that person and other people were faceless bodies and the portraits kind of give them that something to identify and relate to the loss of life that happened. Do you think, as i say in the forward, these portraits are presumably intended to be con soelg. Okay . And i take it from things said thus far that most of you would agree with that, reading these is not difficult. That there is something humanly, you know, attractive about each of these such as, yes, you know theyre dead but they describe theyre living on the page for you. But does that, do you think, and i am only posing this, not in any way suggesting i think so and i want to see if you think so. Im only posing this. Do you think in some way that that is a problem for coming to terms with what happened on september 11th . That we have managed to turn all of the victims into really nice people . You know, each having their own nobility as a human being . And that by doing that we may have been, what, trying to distance ourselves from the actual horror of that day . Trying to make it a little less difficult to accept actually what happened, what it means to have happened, even why it happened, that we are sheltering ourselves . One, two. Well, im not sure, i know you might not be going after anything specific. Im not going after anything. Just asking a question. The way i see it when we look at this, it is more disturbing because we dont know who that is and as the end of the article says, the fact that we have known who the fallen man is all along, that that could be any one of us or could be any person but when you look at these portraits and we make these into real people, its somewhat comforting in the fact that, oh, thats not me. Thats not me. I know thats not somebody that i know. Its not im not dead. Somebody that i know isnt dead. This is somebody completely different. Ive never heard of them or known them. But that guy, that could be anybody. Thats the scare why evident pa the scariest part about it. Keep in mind, when i raise this question about sheltering ourselves, remember, only seen once. We werent allowed, we didnt want to, because the reason why the magazines and newspapers and tv stations took it off, is because they got flooded by phone calls. Dont show that. You shouldnt show that. That is too terrible to show. You know, it wasnt some boss who just decided oh, i dont like that picture lets not use it again. It was public pressure not to show. And they have not ever since really. 2007 the times used it in a book review. But it is still something that is sort of in the forbidden zone. And so is trying to console us with the obituaries and trying to mask us from the horror of really the choices to be made that day, do those two things, those two efforts so to speak consolidate into a way in which at some level we dont want to witness september 11th in its full horror . That is the question im trying to raise. Go ahead. I was going to say while theyre comforting, i think it makes you witness september 11th in a way you never did before. Okay, good. Lets hear it. Who wants to read about someone who is 28 years old a week from his wedding whose fiance worked with him and could have been there that day and is leaving behind not only her but a 5yearold kid. Yeah. The idea of people dying on september 11th is tragic undoubtedly but when you put it on such an individual level, each loss to me at least feels more of like, it has so much more impact when you realize who else was affected by it. Like he had mentioned previously it is not just about the 3,000 victims who passed away but everyone who was significantly affected by their loss as well. Okay. We have only a couple minutes. I wanted to fill you in on a rather intriguing aspect of this rosenthal. Does anybody know who he was aside from what you read there . Okay. I didnt think you would. He was a graduate of the university of michigan. His mother Marilyn Rosenthal taught at dearborn. After his death, his mother, who was a medical sociologist, she wrote a lot, not a physician herself, but she taught at dearborn in the Sociology Department and also had an appointment here in the medical school. She decided that she was going to put aside the her actual Academic Field and she spent the next five years of her life writing a book, researching and writing a book on the pilot of the plane that smashed into the south tower where he was. And she went to the middle east to interview his mother. Okay . And family for this book. But she died in the summer of 2007 before she finished it, because i had gotten her i knew her i had gotten her to agree to come in and talk to the class the first time i taught it in 2007. She was going to talk about what it meant the mother of a victim trying to talk to the family of the perpetrator. Or one of the perpetrators. And what did she not simply have to overcome in dealing with these people but overcome in her own self, in her own psyche to pursue this as an effort. The book was not finished and i dont know that it is going to be finished. But she was responsible, not responsible in the sense of funding, but there is now every fall in fact it was just i think about ten days ago there is a Josh Rosenthal lecture here at the university named after him and if you go down to gallup park on the river there is a lovely wooden bench dedicated to him that was funded by friends of the family. And he is the most famous victim of 9 11 with an association with the university. But if you go to alumni hall, which, you know, is just go up the diag and turn right, there is a plaque on the wall of the, i think it is 11 or 12 university of michigan alumni who were killed on september 11th in alphabet call order. I think the year of the class that they graduated in. So michigan has a certain attachment but the rosenthal is the only one of them that has sort of emerged his name, you know, connected with events here at the university. So i think that will do it for the day. I thank you very much. This was good. Good. I know it is a little troubling to talk about death in these matters but i think it is something that deserves some discussion. Thanks. Week nights this month we feature American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight a look at history through photographs. During the Great Depression and world war ii photographers working for the u. S. Governments Farm Security administration and later the office of war information created about 1600 color photographs depicting life in the United States and war production activities. Collection curator Beverly Brannan of the library of Congress Talks about the photographers and the images. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan 3. Heather penny was one of the first d. C. Air National Guard f16 pilots scrambled from Andrews Air Force base after the 9 11 terrorist attacks. Her father john penny was a United Airlines captain. Up next on American History tv ms. Penny talks about her experiences that day and the possibility that she might have to bring down United Airlines flight 93, which terrorists had hijacked. The smithsonian nati