From Paris and London to Jerusalem and Tokyo, America’s Allies Mark 25 Years Since 9/11

Dozens of firefighters who spent the summer fighting wildfires stood in formation on Paris’s Place des États-Unis on Sept. 11, singing “La Marseillaise” in tribute to the nearly 3,000 people who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States.

Moments earlier, wreaths had been placed at the foot of the “tree of liberty,” planted on the square 25 years ago in memory of the victims.

Pupils from the Concordia school also recited two poems: one by 18th-century French poet André Chénier and “For All Those Souls, A to Z,” by American poet Del “Abe” Jones.

The annual ceremony in Paris’s 16th arrondissement was led by Mayor Jérémy Redler and attended by Mario Mesquita, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy, and Éléonore Caroit, France’s minister delegate for francophonie, international partnerships, and the French abroad.

‘Amnesia Sometimes Strikes Us’

“Every year, right here, in the heart of our district, where the tree of liberty was planted 25 years ago, the town hall of the 16th honors the memory of the victims of Sept. 11. Freedom is a fight, and we carry it together with the United States,” Redler told The Epoch Times.

But Redler also used the occasion to issue a warning.

“Amnesia sometimes strikes us,” he said. “The terrorist threat often seems distant to us, and we tolerate opportunistic displays of complacency toward Islamism.”

Mesquita said, “The events of Sept. 11, 2001, forever changed the lives of people not only in the United States but around the world.”

He recalled the international solidarity that followed the attacks, adding, “We remember that in the days that followed: America did not stand alone.”

Speaking to The Epoch Times, Caroit pointed to the long-standing ties between the two countries.

“We are proud to be America’s oldest ally. France will always stand beside the American people when it comes to defending freedom and democracy,” she said.

For Nicolas Gouzien, the New York City Police Department’s liaison officer at the Paris Police Prefecture, the anniversary carried a particularly personal significance. Born and raised in New York City to French parents from Brittany, Gouzien answered his first call as a police officer on Sept. 11, 2001.

“I think it’s important to keep conveying that message: Never forget, and always remember,” he told The Epoch Times. “It’s also good to see the strength of the French-American relationship.”

Francisco “Paco” Pérez, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, similarly emphasized the bond forged through shared hardship.

“This is one of the very important moments where the French and the United States stand united,” he told The Epoch Times. “We’ve both suffered and we’ve both fought together.”

On Sept. 11, that same spirit of remembrance extended well beyond Paris, with ceremonies taking place around the world, some beside pieces of steel recovered from the fallen World Trade Center towers.

Steel From the Towers, Across the Atlantic

In London, relatives of the 67 British victims of the Sept. 11 attacks gathered at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for a ceremony organized by the charity Since 9/11. The commemoration took place beside a sculpture made from steel recovered from the World Trade Center.

Earlier in the day, U.S. Ambassador Warren Stephens laid a white wreath at the September 11 Memorial Garden in Grosvenor Square.

“Our British friends stood alongside us in one of our nation’s darkest hours,” he wrote on X.

Stephens later joined the duke and duchess of Gloucester, representing the king, at Buckingham Palace. During the Changing of the Guard, the Band of the Coldstream Guards performed “The Star-Spangled Banner,” echoing a gesture requested by Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the attacks.

The U.S. ambassador also attended a memorial service hosted by Lloyd’s of London on behalf of the global insurance community. Charles Roxburgh, chairman of Lloyd’s, recalled that “the insurance family lost colleagues, friends, and loved ones” in the attacks. The industry was hard hit by the attacks on the World Trade Center, where several major insurers maintained offices and suffered significant losses among their employees.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels, the memory of Sept. 11 is embodied in a twisted piece of steel recovered from the 107th floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower. Dedicated in 2017 as the 9/11 and Article 5 Memorial, it also commemorates the first and only time NATO’s collective defense clause has been invoked, on the day after the attacks.

At 2:46 p.m. local time, marking the exact moment the first hijacked airliner struck the north tower, allied ambassadors stood for a minute of silence after two uniformed U.S. service members placed a wreath at the memorial. NATO flags were also lowered to half-staff at alliance commands in Belgium and Norfolk, Virginia.

“America was not alone,” NATO Deputy Secretary-General Radmila Shekerinska said. “Your friends, your allies, were with you then, and they are with you here today.”

Scott Oudkirk, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Mission to NATO, said, “Our threats may change, but our commitment to each other remains and it endures.”

A Quiet Sanctuary in Tokyo

Twenty-four Japanese citizens were among those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. On Sept. 11, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo unveiled a memorial plaque on its grounds in the presence of U.S. Ambassador to Japan George Glass, U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission Aaron Snipe, Japanese Deputy Foreign Minister Yutaka Arima, and relatives of the victims. The embassy described the memorial as a quiet sanctuary for the families of the 24 Japanese people who never returned home.

On its social media, the embassy highlighted the story of Kazusada Sumiyama, whose son, Yoichi Sugiyama, a 34-year-old Fuji Bank employee, was killed in the south tower. Sumiyama, now 89, spent much of the following decade translating the 9/11 Commission Report into Japanese, eventually publishing his translation in 2021.

Remembrance also took a more physical form at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, where participants in the base’s annual stair climb scaled the equivalent of the World Trade Center towers’ 110 floors. Some made the climb in firefighting gear, each carrying a photograph of one of the 343 New York City firefighters who lost their lives on 9/11.

Every Name in the Hills of Jerusalem

In Israel, the anniversary was observed ahead of Rosh Hashanah at the 9/11 Living Memorial in the hills outside Jerusalem. The site is the only memorial beyond the United States bearing the names of all 2,977 victims.

At its center stands a 30-foot bronze sculpture of an American flag transforming into a flame, with a piece of steel recovered from the World Trade Center embedded in its base. Five Israelis were among those killed.

As night fell, representatives of the U.S. Embassy and the Jewish National Fund lit a memorial torch, while U.S. Marines and Israeli firefighters took part in the laying of wreaths. Among those attending were Suri and Harvey Morgenstern, whose daughter, Nancy, was killed in the attacks. Survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre at the Nova music festival also performed during the ceremony.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said the Sept. 11 victims had been “murdered by jihadists” and said that honoring their memory also meant remaining alert to the threat that produced the attacks.

“We also come to remind ourselves to be vigilant, for the danger is not over,” he said.

On the Bases That Answered the Call

At Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the largest U.S. military installation in Europe, hundreds of service members, their families, and German and American firefighters gathered at first light for a memorial ceremony and march.

Among them was guest speaker U.S. Army Col. Christian Labra, a physician at Landstuhl who grew up just north of New York City. Labra was a young lieutenant when the towers fell and would later lose eight soldiers from his platoon in a suicide bombing.

Remembrance ceremonies were also held farther south in Munich, where the U.S. consul general was joined by Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann and Bavarian State Police President Michael Schwald.

The ceremony included the unveiling of a special exhibit featuring messages of solidarity sent from across Bavaria in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.

In Italy, meanwhile, the memory of Sept. 11 has been given a permanent home.

Padua’s “Memoria e Luce” monument was designed by Daniel Libeskind, the architect behind the master plan for the rebuilt World Trade Center site. Shaped as an open book of glass and steel facing toward the Statue of Liberty, the monument holds a nearly 20-foot girder recovered from the towers and given by New York City to the Veneto region.

On the morning of Sept. 11, local authorities gathered at the monument to lay wreaths, paying particular tribute to the 343 New York City firefighters who died that day.

“This monument is a powerful symbol of the friendship between our countries,” said Col. Vaughn Strong, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Italy.

In Milan, that remembrance took on a more physically demanding form. Seventy Italian firefighters and seven American firefighters stationed at Aviano Air Base gathered at the 33-story Torre Galfa to honor their 343 fallen New York City Fire Department counterparts.

Wearing 20 kilograms of turnout gear, the firefighters climbed up and down the tower’s stairwells four times, completing the equivalent of a grueling high-rise ascent in tribute to those killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

The Town That Took In the Stranded

Canada lost 24 citizens in the Sept. 11 attacks, and U.S. consulates commemorated the anniversary across the country, from Halifax to Vancouver. Events included the opening of the Toronto Stock Exchange and a ceremony at the Peace Arch on the border with British Columbia.

“While they took place on American soil, those were attacks not just on the United States but on all of us,” Deputy Chief of Mission Erika Olson said during a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa, according to comments provided to The Epoch Times by the embassy.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra, meanwhile, traveled to Gander, Newfoundland, the small community that welcomed more than 6,500 passengers aboard 38 diverted airliners after U.S. airspace was closed on Sept. 11.  

Thousands gathered in the local arena for a ceremony attended by Governor General Louise Arbour. Earlier, Hoekstra hosted a breakfast to thank the volunteers who, 25 years ago, had opened their homes to thousands of stranded strangers.

Australia, which lost 10 citizens in the Sept. 11 attacks, commemorated the anniversary before a packed football crowd.

The first regular season NFL game held in the country, featuring the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, began with a joint flyover by the Australian air force Roulettes and U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B Ospreys as an Australian and American color guard took the field.

A quarter-century later, from London and Tokyo to Ottawa and Munich, the rituals of remembrance have taken root far beyond lower Manhattan.