NorthIowaToday.com

Founded in 2010

News & Entertainment for Mason City, Clear Lake & the Entire North Iowa Region

Families of N.Y. 9/11 victims want Congress to investigate treatment of unidentified remains

By Melissa Hayes, The Record (Hackensack N.J.) –

NEW YORK — Holding pictures of lost loved ones, relatives of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center stood outside the 9/11 Memorial’s visitors center Sunday afternoon and called for congressional hearings on the treatment of unidentified remains.

“These family members believe the remains should be returned to the World Trade Center site, but in a location that is separate and distinct from the museum and above ground, akin to the Tomb of the Unknowns,” said Norman Siegel, an attorney representing 17 families who sued the city.

Siegel said the lawsuit was an attempt to get the city to release the list of the family members of the 2,749 victims at the World Trade Center so the group could notify them of the plans and seek their input.

The 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters and WTC Victims conducted an email survey, asking relatives of victims whether they wanted the unidentified remains to be housed in the 9/11 Museum, seven stories below ground. Of the roughly, 2,100 people e-mailed, 350 family members responded and 332 said they opposed the plan.

Siegel said it was the first time relatives of victims were surveyed about the placement of the unidentified remains.

The private foundation that runs the memorial and the museum plans to house the unidentified and unclaimed remains in the Office of Chief Medical Examiner’s Repository at bedrock level of the museum. The remains would be behind a wall and inaccessible to the public. The wall, which would be inscribed with a quote from Virgil, “No day shall erase you from the memory of time,” that would be seen by museum visitors.

In a written statement, the president of the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, Joe Daniels, said the victims’ families have known about that plan.

“Since the very beginning, victims’ family members have strongly advocated for the unidentified remains to be returned to the World Trade Center site,” Daniels said. “This is the plan that has been honored and is being implemented.”

The group also voiced its support for 9/11 families and military families who recently learned that partial remains of their relatives were disposed of in a landfill at Dover Air Force Base, according to a press release announcing the event.

An independent panel that studied management issues at Dover Air Force Base’s mortuary briefly mentioned the landfill disposal in a report it released last week.

Several family members in attendance said the remains do not belong in a landfill or a museum.

The remains of more than 1,100 of the 2,753 victims killed at the World Trade Center have not been identified.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Even more news:

Watercooler

Need help with your website?
Call your local professional,
Breakthrough Web Design:
515-897-1144
or go to
BreakthroughWebDesign.com

Copyright 2024 – Internet Marketing Pros. of Iowa, Inc.
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x