By Heidi Trautmann

I will never forget the moment when I heard the voice over ham radio crying out that the two towers of the World Trade Centre were hit, ….Oh my God, the speaker said, Oh my God…

We had just dropped our anchor in a small bay near Kalkan and while my husband was tidying up the ship I had switched on my shortwave radio to get the weather news from our Sailors Net as was my duty every day. I called out and switched on the radio to get more details. I thought my heart would stop beating. We had spent the year 2000 in America, first in New York and later in Louisiana with our families.

When I later saw the news on TV and the photos in magazines, the towers burning, people jumping down from high up to escape the fire, then the clouds of dust that pushed through the streets and covered the fleeing people when the towers collapsed….I still cannot forget these pictures.

We have seen that weapons are not necessary to kill and destroy; terrorists have used a means of transport,  airplanes with living people in it, to hit a monument, to hit the world trade centre, to hit the heart of a nation with living people in it, people who do nothing but earn their money to survive….innocent people used as the deadly tip of a ‘bomb’ to kill other innocent people doing their daily work. This has become the rule of our modern times, to use innocent lives as the shield to hide behind.

We don’t seem to learn, the event of September 11 is recalled on a piece of marble, new fires of hate have sprung up around the world.

When we open the holy books of our world religions, we are all told to love and respect each other but these lines have become worthless.