Souvenirs Vs. Historical Artifacts

There seems to be a big brouhaha brewing over the final disposition of a number of objects from the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacks of 9/11. Some folks are understandably upset that a number of items have been appropriated as souvenirs.

If items are taken simply as momentos or some other kind of personal use, then I agree that there is something abjectly perverted about it.

If the taking of a momento puts an investigation or prosecution in jeopardy, then it needs to be punished.

But not all taking of items is wrong. In some cases, a greater good may be found in the effort.

In the middle of the article there is a few short paragraphs:

The report also states the special agent in charge of the FBI's office in Knoxville, Tenn., Joe Clark, contacted FBI officials in New York requesting a piece of debris to display in an exhibit dealing with hate crimes. A 100-pound piece of steel was sent to Clark, the report said.

The report stated FBI agents who worked in New York repeatedly expressed their disgust that visiting agents and supervisors would seek souvenirs from the terrorist attacks.

Many interviewed regarded the debris as sacred, the reported stated, "and were disgusted by the fact that anyone would want to take items, including pieces of the building which were contaminated with blood and human body parts."

The implication is that there was something wrong with Mr. Clark's request. But I honestly don't believe that there was.

His intention is not to put the piece in his personal collection. His intention is not to try to profit either financially or emotionally from having the piece. Rather he is using it to try to educate.

9/11 is part of our history - an important part. It is not an event that can be ignored. It is not event which should have all evidence of it destroyed. There need to be a few pieces out there where people can see them. There need to be a few pieces out there to remind us of the horror of that day - and of the resolve and unity that followed.

There need to be a few unsanitized pieces, ones that still show the human toll of that day. 9/11 was not clinical. Neither was our reaction.

On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem the Palestinians have set up some museum to the people killed in the fighting on and around the Mount itself. Most of the museum is displays of guns or rocks or flags, with lots of text panels.

But the last display showing a few of the bloody shirts of those wounded or killed on the Mount grabs the visitor. I probably learned more at that last display than I did in the entire rest of the museum.

Was it wrong to display the bloody shirts? I don't think so. History is not always happy. Sometimes history is brutal. Sometimes history is bloody. That part of history needs to be confronted and studied just as much as the Renaissance or the Reformation.

I would commend Agent Clark for trying to make an effort at gaining some good out of such an awful tragedy. Maybe his exhibit won't influence a single person; maybe it will influence countless numbers. We don't know and probably never can or will know. But at least an attempt is being made.

When I look back through my photo albums, I come across a picture of me standing on the observation deck on the top of the Center in 1986. I look at that photo and then I see images from the destruction of the Towers and it makes me sick.

But over time the impact of photos has a tendency to fade. Images can be manipulated. Images can be denied. In the end, they are but colors and patterns on paper that create a representative record of a moment in time. But they are not real.

It is much easier to deny a photograph than it is a block of steel. It is much easier to deny a memory than it is a bloody shirt. It is much easier to deny a textual account than it is a real and tangible artifact of the event. Holocaust deniers can deny the photographs and records of Dachau, but they cannot deny its existence or that of the ovens. We need to keep the memory of 9/11 alive by keeping pieces and parts of the horror where people can see them and remember for themselves their individual horrors of that day.

Now what about Rumsfeld and the piece of metal he keeps on display on a table in his office? That's a little bit tougher.

I would like to see the piece out on display where more people can see, but I don't think we can really pass judgment until he leaves office. If he takes the piece with him, that would be wrong and contemptible. If he leaves it behind as a permanent memorial, then I don't really have any problem with it except for its location.

When we look back at history, we see days of abject tragedy. We remember and try to learn from those days so that the mistakes that brought them on are not made again.

But for the battles we best remember we have physical reminders. It may be the fields of Gettysburg or it may be the hulk of the USS Arizona sitting on the bottom of Pearl Harbor. But with 9/11, the Pentagon has already been repaired and the WTC is going to be rebuilt. There is still the field of Shanksville and there will certainly be some kind of memorial park or stone in Lower Manhattan, but for most people, the physical reminders of that horrible day will be erased. The day will become but a memory, with all the deniability that memory entails.

There is a difference between souvenirs and historical artifacts. I can empathize with the families of the victims of 9/11 in their disgust over the former. But I can also see and appreciate the need for the latter.

We owe it to the victims to not let their day become nothing more than a bad memory.