Why?

Two days after the catastrophe I still can’t quite grasp the enormity of what has happened. The more I listen to the news on the radio and read websites, the sicker I feel.

So far, 5,000 persons have been reported missing, 4,700 of them in New York.

Against all hopes, five firefighters have just been rescued from the ruins, and two of them were even able to walk. Sorry, that turned out not to be true. The firemen were buried under shifting debris today (see CNN News).

The Deutsche Welle has info in English and German. Nachrichten auf deutsch gibt es außerdem bei der Zeit und im SWR3 Newsticker.

“Where were you when…?”: I was at home. I heard about the first plane on the radio shortly after in happened and thought, how can an accident like this happen? Didn’t the pilot see the building? I went online and checked for news. We don’t have a TV, so André and I then watched BBC World via webstream for hours. But even watching it while it was happening didn’t help me understand that it really happened. We saw the towers of the World Trade Center crumble and heard about the third plane at the Pentagon, and I was almost afraid to continue watching, not wanting but needing to know what was going to happen next at the same time.

In der Zeit

Jeder stirbt seinen eigenen Tod. “Die immer wieder abgespulten Schreckensbilder aus Amerika verdecken die einfache Wahrheit: Nichts ist kollektiv, alles ist individuell – auch die Qual der Opfer.” Von Robert Leicht.

“Hier sind viele, aber immer wieder einzelne Menschen ermordet worden. Und wahrscheinlich sterben in den Trümmern immer noch – auch in dieser Minute – welche vor sich hin. Während wir darüber reden.”

“Nicht bei uns”. Das Ende der Illusionen. Von Jane Kramer.

“Ich kenne keinen Fleck auf der ganzen Welt, wo die Distanz zwischen ‘bei uns’ und ‘nicht bei uns’ mit solcher Inbrunst geglaubt wurde wie in Amerika und wo dieser Glaube wider alle Wahrscheinlichkeit so unverrückbar war. “