Cara Kowe shows some of the personal items on display
Syracuse University Remembrance Scholar Jesse Feitel feels a special bond with Stephan Boland who was one of 35 SU students killed when Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over Lockerbie, Scottland.
"I would be honored to represent any of the victims but I just thought with Steven, he was someone I could identify with," Feitel says.
As part of Syracuse University's Remembrance Week, items from the Pan Am Flight 103 Archive are on display at Bird Library this week. The collection contains more than 270 boxes worth of documents, photos and items recovered at the crash site. Items like a Billy Joel record which belonged to one of the victims.
Most of today's students were not even born at the time of the bombing and the university hopes the archives will help educate them about the importance remembering the attack.
"Terrorism and things have become part of their lives since 9/11, and it's important to remind them that 9/11 was not the first, that in fact this had happened before," says Feitel.
Syracuse University started the collection two years after the bombing initially focusing on the 35 students killed in the attack and later expanding to include all 270 victims.
For Feitel, it is comforting to know that thanks to the archives the memory of Stephan Boland lives on.
"There are still people who are thinking about him and walking past his picture and asking questions about his life. He wasn't just forgotten," he says.
