An incredible coincidence.
These days I’m staying in Harburg, a district of Hamburg. Last night, while reading Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, a book about the rise of al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11, I suddenly came across the name Harburg.
I discovered that, just one street away from my hotel, is the apartment associated with the infamous “Hamburg cell,” the group that included several of the 9/11 hijackers.
Today I went to 54 Marienstraße, once a meeting place for the cell. Now other people simply live there.
Among its most prominent members were Mohamed Atta, the group’s leader, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was unable to enter the United States; Marwan al-Shehhi, who piloted United Airlines Flight 175 into the other tower; and Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
How do you sleep in a house with a history like this?
