• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, September 11, 2017

Memory -- you may think it’s something permanent, but in fact it’s far more permeable than that. When you think of what happened yesterday, you have a picture. Ten years later, the memory changes.

And so, on the 16-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centers, it’s worth taking a moment to understand the changing nature of memory. 

Cliff Chanin is one of the world's leading experts on memory. Back when I first met him, Chanin was the founder of The Legacy Project, a U.S.-based foundation working to draw together artists from countries that have suffered mass national traumas or genocides, leaving a great "absence" among the populace. Now he is executive vice president and deputy director for museum programs at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

Back in 2005, we were together on a panel at  the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. The topic was the importance and complexity of archiving the story of 9/11. 

That evening, Chanin said: “You have a memory. You know how powerful it has been in your life, and you know it is not fixed. It is going to change, you’re going to struggle to hold on to it -- and yet the more you struggle, the tighter your grasp, the less able you are to retain it. It is going to change over the course of time.

"We can think of three phases over the passage now of decades after an historical event,” explained Chanin. "The first is really this impulse to documentation. And what’s extraordinary is that there is this need at the time that something happens to make a document that proved that it happened.”

That documentation process for 9/11 is ongoing, explained Chanin, noting that “more materials have become available the court-ordered release of responder tapes and other materials have given us a picture of what it was like having to respond to the attacks on the towers. The reports in the papers about the the Able Danger data-mining project casts a new light on what we're thought to be the conclusive findings of the September 11th commission about the event, and what we knew about it now that hasn't been fully sorted out yet. But the point is, we are very likely to learn more -- and so the process of documentation is very likely far from over."

But Chanin understood, many years ago, that the spirit of 9/11 would have memories that change as the event shifts from something recent, to find its place in history.

“There's a documentation of the event and then there's a documentation of the spirits surrounding the event,” said Chanin of the second phase of memory. “It's kind of an emotional documentation of what happens -- and that is going to change perhaps even more dramatically than the factual narratives with the passage of time.”

Today, the children old enough to remember the day are graduating college. And for anyone younger, their understanding of 9/11 will be found in stories we share and artifacts we protect and preserve.

So if you have a story of 9/11, this week is a good time to write it down, record a video, or share it with someone younger. Memories fade with time time, making the need to protect and document them more important as each year passes.

You can make a donation to support the national 9/11 Memorial & Museum here.