They are testaments to the impact of terrorism: sculptures portraying mothers going
back to the exact moment they learned their child died in the terrorist bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie, Scotland. Some are screaming;
others are weeping. Some are curled into a ball; others have fists raised in anger. The
76 larger-than-life figures that comprise the Dark Elegy collection were created by
Montauk, N.Y.-based artist Suse Lowenstein, the mother of a Pan Am 103 student
victim.
Four of these sculptures arrived on the Syracuse University campus on Thursday,
Sept. 25, to begin the University's commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Pan
Am 103 tragedy; the arrival of the sculptures is part of a wide range of planned
activities. Information on those activities can be found at the University's Pan Am 103
20th anniversary website: http://panam103.syr.edu/calendar-of-events. Visitors are
also encouraged to leave memories and reflections on the website.
It was 20 years ago this December that 270 people lost their lives in what has been
described as one of the first acts of terrorism on a truly international scale.
Pan Am Flight 103 departed from London's Heathrow Airport on the evening of
Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1988, bound for John F. Kennedy International Airport in New
York City. The 259 people aboard included 35 students who had spent the semester
studying abroad in London and Florence, Italy, through SU's Division of
International Programs Abroad (now known as SU Abroad).
The plane exploded in the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, at 7:03 p.m. local time (2:03
p.m. ET), killing all 259 passengers and crew, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the
ground.
"Pan Am 103 indelibly changed the landscape of Syracuse University forever," says
Kelly Homan Rodoski '92, communications manager in SU's Office of News Services
and chair of the University's Pan Am 103 20th Anniversary Commemoration
Committee. Rodoski was a student on the SU campus when the tragedy occurred.
"This was the kind of event that occurred elsewhere, not in our part of the world and
not on our campus. The fact that 35 young men and women in the prime of their
lives, brimming with intellectual curiosity and spirit of adventure, were taken in a
senseless act of violence was, and remains today, incomprehensible."
In the years since the bombing, SU has maintained strong connections with many of
the families who lost loved ones. Every year since 1990, 35 SU students have been
named Remembrance Scholars, one of the most prestigious honors the University
bestows. The University has forged a strong relationship with Lockerbie, and each
year two students from Lockerbie come to Syracuse to study for one academic year.
Through these scholarships, the University encourages students to exchange ideas
and to educate themselves and the entire campus community about the devastating
effects of terrorism.
SU is also home to the Pan Am 103/Lockerbie Air Disaster Archives. Established in
1990, the Archives brings together in one place materials generated regarding the
bombing, makes those materials available for research and provides a place to
personalize all 270 victims.
The Dark Elegy exhibition will be on display through Dec. 21. Lowenstein, the
mother of SU student victim Alexander Lowenstein, created the sculptures in the
years immediately following the tragedy as a way to translate expressions of grief,
pain and rage. She invited the mothers of the victims into her studio and asked them
to go back to the moment when they learned their loved one had died. "This is the
moment that I froze in time," Lowenstein says. Each figure is inscribed with the
names of the person posing and the person lost. Lowenstein included a small
memento of the victim in each sculpture. Thirty-five of the sculptures were displayed
on the SU campus during the 1995-96 academic year.
Other activities planned as part of the commemoration include:
"The commemoration committee hopes that these events and opportunities will
honor the loved ones lost and will recognize the tremendous legacy of Pan Am 103
both on our campus and in the world," says Rodoski.
SU's Pan Am 103 20th anniversary commemoration will culminate with a special
Service of Remembrance in Hendricks Chapel on Sunday, Dec. 21, the 20th
anniversary of the tragedy.
