They survived 9/11; 25 years later, their bonds remain unbroken

Key Highlights

• “It’s a big deal to ask someone to share the story of the worst day of their lives,” said Jones.
• As the 25th anniversary approaches, National Geographic, in collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, is marking the occasion with a new documentary miniseries: 9/11: Reunited.
• “We wanted to bring people together to offer gratitude to each other, to answer unanswered questions, to talk about things that maybe they weren’t ready to talk about until now, and also to remember their fallen comrades or friends,” said Jones.
• ” “The challenge was not to impose a story onto anything,” said Jones.
• The first plane hit the North Tower as the elevator approached the 65th floor; the car plummeted 15 floors before the emergency brake kicked in.

lest we forget Survivors reconnect with those who saved them in National Geographic’s 9/11: Reunited.

Smoke billows from lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001.

Credit: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan/FILE September 11, 2001, will be remembered as one of the darkest days in American history.

As the 25th anniversary approaches, National Geographic, in collaboration with the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, is marking the occasion with a new documentary miniseries: 9/11: Reunited.

The three-episode series revisits the personal stories of several survivors of the terrorist attacks, with a twist: It reunites people whose paths crossed at that time to celebrate the bonds they formed 25 years ago.

Director Julian Jones was a producer on NatGeo’s Emmy-winning 2021 documentary miniseries 9/11: One Day in America.

The experience inspired him to return to direct 9/11: Reunited.

“What emerged for me [while making the 2021 documentary] was a sense of people showing up for each other, a selflessness and everyday heroism,” Jones told Ars.

As the 25th anniversary of the attacks approached, he and National Geographic decided to commemorate the milestone with a documentary series focused on that aspect.

“We wanted to bring people together to offer gratitude to each other, to answer unanswered questions, to talk about things that maybe they weren’t ready to talk about until now, and also to remember their fallen comrades or friends,” said Jones.

“After 25 years, who do they want to meet?

What questions have they got?

I think we also wanted to tell the story of what many in the 9/11 community call 9/12, that’s the rest of your lives--the journey, and in many cases, the psychological and physical struggles.

” “The challenge was not to impose a story onto anything,” said Jones.

“It was to let the story emerge organically in a way that would feel meaningful to our participants.

Our job was to really listen to our participants and be guided by what they wanted.

” Jones and his team had vast amounts of archival footage at their disposal, and selecting which footage to use--and how much of the often gruesome details to include--proved to be a delicate balance.

There is no footage of the desperate people jumping to their deaths from the burning North Tower, for instance.

“You can’t sanitize history,” said Jones.

“You can’t sanitize what happened.

Among those featured in 9/11: Reunited are John Paczkowski, George Phoenix, and Jan Demczur. Paczkowski worked on the 67th floor of the North Tower; Phoenix worked on the 74th floor. They had just entered the elevator to get to work that morning when Demczur, a window cleaner, jumped in at the last minute with his gear. The first plane hit the North Tower as the elevator approached the 65th floor; the car plummeted 15 floors before the emergency brake kicked in.