English Feature #7-35654 Broadcast December 10, 2001
Tomorrow, December 11, it will be exactly three months since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington. Today on New American Voices, a Russian immigrant who was on his way to his office near the World Trade Center on that fateful September morning recalls what happened.
Samuel Kliger is a Moscow-trained sociologist now working for the New York Association of New Americans in Manhattan. He remembers September 11th as a gloriously beautiful autumn day, with a bright blue sky and crystal-clear air.
Mr. Kliger says that, in a way, it was like watching a surrealistic movie -- a movie in which he himself became an actor in scenes of mass confusion.
Despite the interruption of communications, Mr. Kliger found out soon enough what was happening.
Like many families whose loved ones worked near the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, Samuel Kliger's family could not reach him at work, and did not know what had happened to him.
Until September 11th, the Kliger family had a view of the World Trade Center towers from their sixth-floor apartment in Brooklyn.
Mr. Kliger, a Russian immigrant who came to this country twelve years ago, says he felt the psychological impact of the terrorist attacks on three distinct levels.
Samuel Kliger says he also experienced the attack from the perspective of someone who grew up in Russia.
And on the third level, Mr. Kliger reacted to the attack as an American.
Shortly after the September 11th attacks Mr. Kliger conducted a survey of Russian-speakers in New York City on their reaction to the events. Next week on New American Voices he tells us the survey found both solidarity and divisiveness in the Russian community.