Series for the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks
-
fromJosef Hornsteiner
–
conclude
–
September 11, 2001 changed the world. People from the Garmisch-Partenkirchen district tell their story 20 years after the terrorist attacks in New York.
Farchant/New York – The man from your neighborhood won’t be returning home this Tuesday. Gabi Maurrasse only knows him briefly. Every now and then he ran into her. When he was walking in front of her house in the direction of the train station, he always greeted her in a friendly manner. She doesn’t see him that Tuesday.
20 years after 9/11 terror: Upper Bavarian worked for Lufthansa at the John F. Kennedy Airport
But Maurrasse knows that he got on the train and headed downtown. To his office on one of the top floors of the World Trade Center. She recognizes him immediately, in the photo next to hundreds of others. Stuck to a fence near her home in Long Island. “Missing” is written below it. Candles and flowers everywhere. Your neighbor was killed on September 11, 2001 in the destroyed Twin Towers. The day when terrorists took down the tallest buildings in New York with airplanes.
Shortly before the attacks: Gabi Maurrasse (center) with two colleagues at her workplace at JFK Airport. On September 11, 2001, the Farchantress was also on the roster. Should have worked at noon.
© Private
–
To this day, Maurrasse often thinks of “9/11”. She has been back in her hometown Farchant since December 2020, where she grew up as Gabriele Felber. On October 1st, 1988, when she was in her mid-twenties, she emigrated to the USA – because of love. In Germany she met her future husband Mike Maurrasse, a born and bred New Yorker. From then on she worked for Lufthansa at the John F. Kennedy Airport, one of the largest and most important airports in the world.
9/11: Gabrielle Maurrasse drives children to school in New York – then the radio interrupts the program
She often thinks of the neighbor who was killed. And how lucky she was that it wasn’t her husband at the time. Because her Mike took the same train to Lower Manhattan from Long Island at almost the same time every day. There the young family has built an idyllic life in a quiet suburb of New York. Mike Maurrasse worked an hour’s drive away as an IT manager at One World Financial Center – at 200 Liberty Street, right next to the Twin Towers.
On that September 11th, at 8 a.m., Gabrielle Maurrasse drives her two children to school. You are in the 1st and 4th grades of an elementary school in Long Island. At 8.30 a.m. she wants to go home again. The sun is shining. The radio announces a wonderful autumn day. Many passengers are to be expected. She therefore wants to treat herself to a little rest before a strenuous day at work. Her shift starts at 12 noon at JFK Airport. There she sits at the check-in or works in the first-class lounge.
At 8:48 a.m., the station on your car radio interrupts its current program. Then she comes. The message that shocked the native Farchanter to the core. A plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Maurrasse drives more slowly, peers out the car windows. In some places in Long Island, the Manhattan skyline is easy to see. She sees black smoke. At 9 a.m. she parks her vehicle in the driveway, runs into the house, turns on the television. She can barely process what she sees when a second plane flies into the south tower live on TV at 9:03 a.m. It’s not an accident. This is war.
She and a girlfriend follow terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania
Shocked, she picks up the phone and calls her friend. “Fortunately, Mike is not in the office as usual,” she says. He has been on a business trip in London since September 10th. She and her friend follow the hours of horror together. How the south tower collapses. Then the north tower. She hangs up. The boss tries to contact you. Maurrasse doesn’t have to work today. The airport is closed. Air traffic ceased completely. Nobody knows how many hijacked planes may still be in the air. Maurrasse hears jet jets flying overhead. Fighter pilots over the tranquil Long Island.
Her husband received food here 20 years ago while he was helping to rebuild the digital infrastructure at Ground Zero: Gabi Maurrasse (left) in front of St. Paul Chapel near the World Trade Center.
© Private
–
She is on the phone with the headmistress and is supposed to pick up the children. The lesson is cancelled. The director has not yet reached some parents. Maurrasse later learns that there are also fatalities among them. The telephone network has largely collapsed when she drives her car back to school. The traffic is slow.
On the radio she hears of miles of traffic jams in and around the city center. Again and again she looks up to the sky. The dark billows of smoke cover the Manhattan skyline. “The smoke was like a shroud, it lay down on everything for days.” She finally reached her husband. They talk for a long time. He wants to go home immediately, but he doesn’t know when he’ll get a flight. The government closes the airspace to international traffic for three days.
9/11: Man is only allowed to travel to New York on September 14th – then he helps at Ground Zero
It wasn’t until September 14, 2001 that Maurrasse was sitting in a machine. On the same day he offers his help and sets off for Manhattan. The thick smoke has still not settled there. His office is destroyed. The shock waves from the collapsing towers shattered windows and shattered furniture. Debris tore open the facade. As an IT manager, Maurrasse helps rebuild the digital infrastructure around Ground Zero. Sometimes he and his colleagues come home covered in soot and dust. “Many of his colleagues became ill from the pollutants released in the air.” Diagnosis: cancer.
Lufthansa puts the emigrated German back the next day. But not at the airport, but in the telephone service of the completely overloaded reservation office. For two days she has to take countless calls, cancel flights, rebooking, explain to people like a prayer wheel why air traffic can still not be started.
“Most of them were afraid, but they understood the situation. Others don’t. ”There is chaos in the city. For days those passengers who were in their aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean towards America at the time of the attack have been bivouacking in Newfoundland. Maurrasse speaks to her Lufthansa colleagues, who are brought to Gander Airport in a small plane and help the locals to take care of the stranded.
After terrorist attacks in New York: work at JFK airport changes suddenly
Otherwise nothing is like it was before. Since the attacks, aircraft have been seen not only as a means of transport but also as a potential weapon of mass destruction. When the native Farchanter went back to work at the JFK, “black lists” with the names of Islamist threats were hanging at her workplace. They have to be singled out and especially extremely controlled. “It was all terribly chaotic,” she says later. Due to the new, complex security checks, some of them miss their flights. Some are even banned from flying.
9/11: “Everyone here in New York knows someone who has worked there”
A lot has changed for her husband too. The One World Financial Center is closed for seven months. Maurrasse’s company therefore moved to Midtown. Gabrielle Maurrasse lived and worked in New York until December 2020. Now she has returned to her mother in Farchant, taking care of her. She was only able to visit the World Trade Center two months after the attack in 2001. Since then she has often been to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
That place where the 3000 or so dead that day are listed by name. Her neighbor’s name is also somewhere. “Everyone here in New York knows someone who has worked there,” says Maurrasse. To this day, she and her ex-husband have a queasy feeling when they stand at the new World Trade Center – especially in front of St. Paul’s Chapel, where the countless helpers and emergency services were fed – like their Mike. But only the chapel survived that day unscathed.
Read more news from the Garmisch-Partenkirchen region here. By the way: All developments and results from the upcoming federal election from your region as well as all other important stories from the GAP region are now also available in our regular GAP newsletter.
–
