Relics from 9/11 going on display in Washington

A piece of Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania
© AFP/Getty Images Win Mcnamee

WASHINGTON (AFP) – More than 50 objects pulled from the rubble of 9/11 are going on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, giving a unique take on the terror attacks that changed the world.

Over nine days from Friday, visitors to the “September 11: Remembrance and Reflection” exhibition will be able to examine fragments of the airliners hijacked by Al-Qaeda extremists to attack New York and Washington a decade ago.

But there are many personal items as well, such as a squeegee that a window washer used to break through a wall to flee the collapsing World Trade Center, and a clock from the Pentagon that stopped at the moment of impact.

There is also the door from a crushed New York fire truck, the video camera that recorded the first airliner to hit the World Trade Center, and — perhaps most incongruously — a colorful M&M’s candy dispenser from a Pentagon office.

All objects are being displayed in the open, rather than in glass enclosures.

“This time, for a brief period, from September 3 to 11, we want people to come closer to these objects, as close as we can permit,” Marc Pachter, the museum’s interim director, said Thursday.

“It’s so important,” he told AFP. “Because people actually believe in things, these objects are witnesses — and it’s as though they can bend over and hear their stories.”

The museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution, is the official repository of objects, documents and photographs relating to the 9/11 attacks.