September 11 terrorist attacks: Perpetrators and victims
Discussion of Mohammed Atta, lead hijacker in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and German banker Sebastian Gorki, one of the victims killed in the World Trade Center, New York.
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Transcript
NARRATOR: Sept. 11, 2001 - a terror attack on New York changes the world. The perpetrators are quickly identified. Mohammed Atta and Ziad Jarrah. They came from Hamburg in Germany. They were students at the University of Technology. Atta is just one of many foreign students when he begins to plan the attacks.
LAWRENCE WRIGHT: "Mohammed Atta was just one of those people and had also had very good educational systems. You know, the school that he went to was a terrific school. So, you know, he could get a good education and it would be free and it allowed him access to all of Europe."
NARRATOR: Atta studies town planning.
DITTMAR MACHULE: "At the beginning he was an interested young man, who didnāt look particularly different. He wasnāt dressed conspicuously, just in a normal jacket, seemed interested and asked questions. He didnāt say very much."
NARRATOR: In the Al-Quds-Mosque near Hamburg central station, the apparently shy student keeps contact with Islamists.
MANFRED MURCK: "Well, the mosque continued to forge contacts between people, they were probably already radicals. They got together as a group to make an active contribution.
NARRATOR: Jarrah and Atta plan a trip to an Al Qaeda training camp. Then, they set their sights on their target, New York. It is a dream city for many young people across the world. Including Sebastian Gorki from Germany.
MARLIS GORKI: "Of course we were happy for him. We knew that it's the greatest thing for a young banker to be in New York."
NARRATOR: In the center of the financial world.
MANFRED GORKI: "Canāt it be London, thatās a bit closer, or perhaps Milan or Zurich or somewhere else? But this was the chance he got and New York is New York."
NARRATOR: Sebastian Gorki is in the south tower of the World Trade Center when these pictures are taken on 11th, September, 2001.
JULIE VON KESSEL: "I was getting a sound bite, was asking a witness, when the first building collapsed behind me. It was unbelievably loud, as if another airplane had crashed into it. And suddenly, within seconds, we were all covered in burning smoke and ashes and we just ran for our lives."
NARRATOR: It is a new dimension of terror.
VON KESSEL: "I remember gesticulating wildly, and that I couldnāt believe it. And I remember thinking 'How can I put this horror into words? I canāt.'"
NARRATOR: More than 17,000 manage to escape.
MANFRED GORKI: "We were clinging to hope. In one picture I see Sebastian running away. That he was in the office, but that he was already downstairs and could get away or something like that."
NARRATOR: The collapse of the towers buries those last hopes. Almost 3,000 die. The monuments of the western financial world become reminders of terror. Sebastian Gorkiās parents visit the memorial because there is no grave for their son.
LAWRENCE WRIGHT: "Mohammed Atta was just one of those people and had also had very good educational systems. You know, the school that he went to was a terrific school. So, you know, he could get a good education and it would be free and it allowed him access to all of Europe."
NARRATOR: Atta studies town planning.
DITTMAR MACHULE: "At the beginning he was an interested young man, who didnāt look particularly different. He wasnāt dressed conspicuously, just in a normal jacket, seemed interested and asked questions. He didnāt say very much."
NARRATOR: In the Al-Quds-Mosque near Hamburg central station, the apparently shy student keeps contact with Islamists.
MANFRED MURCK: "Well, the mosque continued to forge contacts between people, they were probably already radicals. They got together as a group to make an active contribution.
NARRATOR: Jarrah and Atta plan a trip to an Al Qaeda training camp. Then, they set their sights on their target, New York. It is a dream city for many young people across the world. Including Sebastian Gorki from Germany.
MARLIS GORKI: "Of course we were happy for him. We knew that it's the greatest thing for a young banker to be in New York."
NARRATOR: In the center of the financial world.
MANFRED GORKI: "Canāt it be London, thatās a bit closer, or perhaps Milan or Zurich or somewhere else? But this was the chance he got and New York is New York."
NARRATOR: Sebastian Gorki is in the south tower of the World Trade Center when these pictures are taken on 11th, September, 2001.
JULIE VON KESSEL: "I was getting a sound bite, was asking a witness, when the first building collapsed behind me. It was unbelievably loud, as if another airplane had crashed into it. And suddenly, within seconds, we were all covered in burning smoke and ashes and we just ran for our lives."
NARRATOR: It is a new dimension of terror.
VON KESSEL: "I remember gesticulating wildly, and that I couldnāt believe it. And I remember thinking 'How can I put this horror into words? I canāt.'"
NARRATOR: More than 17,000 manage to escape.
MANFRED GORKI: "We were clinging to hope. In one picture I see Sebastian running away. That he was in the office, but that he was already downstairs and could get away or something like that."
NARRATOR: The collapse of the towers buries those last hopes. Almost 3,000 die. The monuments of the western financial world become reminders of terror. Sebastian Gorkiās parents visit the memorial because there is no grave for their son.
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