Volume XXXVIII     Number 3 2001    Department of Public Information

Lighting candles for the missing

Many of the victims of the terrorist attacks of 11 September were young people, often at the beginning of their professional lives, as indeed were many firemen and rescue workers who lost their lives when the World Trade Center towers collapsed.

Around the world, people, trying to make sense of the tragedy, experienced the days and weeks following the attacks with "grief approaching despair and overwhelming, abiding hope". In many places around New York spontaneous memorials telling the victims' stories help those left behind find ways to cope with the senseless violence.

Candles from a vigil at Union Square, New York City.
Photo/Sasha Shor

The UN Chronicle presents in the following pages, three perspectives of such memorials for the missing.

At a recent memorial service at New York's Pace University, which is located near "Ground Zero" and had lost several of its students, Kevin Cahill shared his own personal experiences of humanitarian tragedies in other parts of the world. The service ended with the lighting of candles.

Lawri Moore, President of the United Nations Jazz Society, shares her conversations with many jazz musicians in New York about coping with the tragedy.

'Do You Not See the Heart in the Stars?' - Kevin M. Cahill

'We Need Jazz More Than Ever' - Lawri Lala Moore


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