Twenty-five years ago, the apocalypse of September 11, 2001: four planes hijacked by terrorists from Al Qaeda, the terrorist group led by Osama Bin Laden, who used them as weapons of destruction against the United States of America.
An attack that shocked not only the US, but the entire world. A wound that remains open.
Anyone who was already born has an indelible memory of where they were when, at 8:46 New York time, the American flight
Airlines 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, then collapsed on itself at 10:28 a.m. A second plane crashed into the South Tower, a third into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania, at the sacrifice of the passengers, who, after realizing they had been held hostage and part of a potential massacre, decided to rebel against the hijackers and intervene.
A total of 2,977 lives were lost. Among the victims were 411 citizens of Italian origin.
Their names have now been collected on a website and a publication, along with their faces and their stories.
The initiative stems from the work of Giulio Picolli, who spent months reconstructing the names one by one from official records, searching for photographs, verifying information, and cross-referencing often incomplete or fragmentary sources.
Over time, this research has also become a work of connection and memory. Picolli contacted the families of numerous victims, collecting testimonies and materials and striving to maintain, throughout every phase of the project, a direct relationship with those who personally experienced those stories.
According to the data collected, 230 of the Italian-American victims died in the World Trade Center Towers, 159 inside one of the two towers, 17 on board the hijacked flights and 5 at the Pentagon.
For each victim, the project collects, where available, a photograph, age, and place of residence.
"I wanted to identify and remember every Italian who died in that tragedy, individually, so that their memory would not only belong to us but be passed on to our children and grandchildren," said Picolli. The work takes shape through a website (available at www.nondimenticheremo.com) and a publication dedicated to the 411 victims, conceived as a place of remembrance destined to grow over time with new photographs, information, and testimonies. The project also includes a tricolor flag composed of the victims' names, inspired by the American "Flag of Honor." Elisabetta Calello, Gina Lia, Silvana Mangione, Davide Ippolito, and Joe De Bellis, the associations Ieri Oggi e Domani, Cavaleri Omri of New Jersey, and Italia America Reputation Lab, along with ilNewyorkese, contributed to the creation and dissemination of the initiative.
(Unioneonline)
