One poignant phrase echoes as relatives of the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001 gather each year to remember their loved ones killed in these terrorist attacks attacks. The phrase is: "I never met you".
She is the sound of generational change seen at Ground Zero in New York, where relatives of the victims read the names of all those who died on each anniversary of the attacks. Nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorists from "Al Qaeda" hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon building and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.
At the memorial service, among the 140 people who usually read the names of the victims, there are children and people in their early twenties. Young people are expected to be present again this year at the commemorative ceremony.
Some of these young people are children of victims whose partners were pregnant at the time of the attacks. Most of the young people reading the names are nephews, grandchildren or great-grandchildren of the victims. They have inherited stories, photographs and the feeling that they bear a solemn responsibility to the memory of the dead.
Being a member of a "September 11, 2001 family,", that is, a family that suffered in the attacks, is a fact that reverberates through the generations. Someday, remembering the victims and making sense of what happened on 9/11 23 years ago will be the task of a world that has no first-hand memories of the attacks.
"It's like passing the Olympic torch," says 13-year-old Alan Alditzky.
For the past two years, he has been reading the names of his grandfather and several others who died in the attacks. He plans to do the same this year. Alditsky keeps memories of his grandfather Alan Tarasevich, who was a firefighter, in his room.
Last year, the teenager told an audience gathered at Kota Zero that he felt like he knew his grandfather, but added that he still wished he had actually known him.
Alan himself asked to be one of the people reading the names of the victims, because that way he feels closer to his grandfather. He hopes to have children who will one day replace him as name reader.
"It will be an honor for me to teach them that, because that way they will understand what their heritage is and they will never want to forget it," says Allen. He says that he has already told in detail about the attacks to his peers who know little or nothing about September 11, 2001.
When it comes time for the ceremony, Alan researches information about the lives of each person whose name he will have to read.
"It lets you know how important that person was to someone," says Alan's mother, Melissa Tarasevich.
Reading the names of the dead is a tradition that extends beyond the Kota Zero ceremony. During ceremonies commemorating the victims of the wars, the names of the dead are also read aloud. Some Jewish organizations organize readings of names on the international day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
The names of the 168 people killed in the 1995 bombing of a federal administration building in Oklahoma City are also read annually during a memorial service.
On September 11, the ceremony at the Pentagon includes the reading of the names of the 184 people who died there in the attacks. Names are usually read by officials and military personnel. At the memorial for the victims of the plane crash in Pennsylvania, relatives and friends of the victims read the names of the 40 passengers and crew members whose lives were taken in the plane that crashed in a field near the town of Shanksville.
The one-hour commemoration ceremony at the memorial complex in New York is almost entirely dedicated to the names of the 2,977 victims at all locations affected by the attacks, as well as the names of the six victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. All names are read by relatives of the victims who have voluntarily agreed to it. Through a lottery, each relative is given several names to read aloud. Readers often talk briefly about their lost loved ones as well, often remembering some poignant detail about them.
"I often think about what it would be like if you were still here. Would you be my best friend? Would you look for a suitable college for me. Would you save me from possible problems with mom and dad? Would we have been walking around the waterfront,'' Capri Jarosz said at the ceremony last year as she remembered her late uncle, New York firefighter Christopher Michael Motzillo.
Capri is now 17 years old and has learned a lot about her uncle over the years thanks to a book her parents made especially for her when she was a baby. Capri's family talks about Christopher at every opportunity, every day. "Chris would have loved it" is the phrase often heard around the house.
Capri read names twice during the memorial service in New York last year. "It means a lot to me to continue to read my uncle's name and others so that more and more future generations will learn about them," Capri says. "I feel good that I can share with others the importance of what is happening,", she adds.
Her two younger sisters have also read names and one is preparing to do so at this year's ceremony. Their mother - Pamela Jarosz never dared to do it, however. "I'm not that strong. It's too hard for me," says Pamela, who is the sister of Christopher Michael Motzilo. "My children are braver than me," she admits.
By now, many of the children of the 9/11 victims are long grown. But about 100 children were born after the attacks in which their parents died and today they are 22-23 years old.
"To think we never met. I am honored to carry your name and your legacy with me. Thank you for giving me this life and this family,'' Manuel Da Motta Jr. said during last year's memorial service for his father, who was a project manager in the woodworking industry.
One after another, the young readers remembered aunts, uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers.
"I wanted you to be by my side, not just looking at you in the form of a picture in a frame" or "Even if we never met, I will never forget you" - these were some of the words spoken at the ceremony last year in memory of the victims of September 11, 2001.
Translation from English: Gabriela Golemanska, BTA