Bali bombing and 9/11 victims united in New York memorial
The 88 Australians killed in the Bali bombings, and 10 victims in September 11, will be remembered together at this year’s New York memorial.
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For the first time in two decades, 88 Australians killed in the Bali bombing will be remembered together with the 10 lost on September 11 at this year’s New York memorial service.
It comes amid reports five-storey hotel, restaurant and nightclub will be built over the site of the 2002 attack after the owner of the Sari Club refused to sell the land for a memorial park dedicated to the victims.
As Islamic militant Umar Patek prepares for an early release, the names of his 88 Australian victims will be read out at the Manhattan memorial dedicated to those killed during the 9/11 terror attack one year earlier.
Memorial organiser James Boland said uniting the 98 Australians killed on opposite sides of the world to mark 20 years was backed by the Australian Consul-General in New York, Nick Greiner.
“For our members, a lot of whom weren’t in New York on 9/11 but were in Australia when Bali happened, it’s very meaningful,” said Mr Boland, founder of The Australian Community in New York.
Mr Boland discussed the idea to his group’s members, as well as the performers and other Australians participating in the 9/11 event and received widespread agreement to include Bali bombing victims, who don’t otherwise receive an official moment of remembrance in the US.
“For Bali, it’s something that’s memorable to Australians who are now in New York,” he said. “And I received a letter from the Consul General saying that he felt that it was also not inappropriate. We wanted to make sure that there was a consensus this was something fitting.”
One Australian in New York who remembers both 9/11, and Bali a year later, is Frank Ford, the former owner of iconic but since-closed New York pub 8 Mile Creek, which kicked off the city’s “Little Australia” when it opened in 1999.
Just 2.4 km north of the Twin Towers, 8 Mile Creek - branded after its South Australian namesake - was one of the first, if not the only, Australian bars in Manhattan in 2001 before the first plane struck at 8:14am local time.
By sheer luck, his Aussie mates who had “chucked sickies” that day were not among the eight Australians killed in the Twin Towers. Two other Australian victims were on board hijacked aircraft.
“I sprint up the rooftop, and I stood up there and all of a sudden the bloody thing crumbled. I went down and said, it’s gone. It just fell over. It’s gone. They said, ‘what do you mean it’s gone’. I said, it’s gone. Fell down,” Mr Ford remembered.
“I called my parents up and said, ‘shit’s hitting the fan’. Then the second one went down, then all I remember is going down to 8 Mile Creek and opening the doors. And slowly but surely people started dragging themselves in.”
“People came in and we said get some drinks, the bar is open just help yourselves and we all just waited to hear news, because the first day there was no information. We just expected this to go on for days and days.
“The way the city pulled together after it. It was a feeling in the city that would never be seen again.”
While still living in New York, Mr Ford has never been back to the site of the Twin Towers or the 9/11 memorial. Having lived it, it’s not a destination he has mustered the emotional desire to return to for contemplation.
This year will be no exception, especially now the victims of Bali will be remembered. An avid supporter of The Sturt Football Club, Mr Ford had a signed jersey of Sturt’s “Double Blues” on the wall of 8 Mile Creek when many of the club’s team were killed and injured in Bali.
The club’s 2002 premiership-winning team were celebrating the championship season at Sari Club, resulting in the death of reserve Josh Deegan and trainer Bob Marshall, and the severe injury of many others.
After 8 Mile Creek closed in 2011, that jersey was framed and returned to South Australia, where it remains at the Commercial Hotel in Cowell.
The same year as Mr Ford closed up shop 10 years after 9/11, a Bali Bombing survivor, Antony Svilicich, struck a lonely figure at ground zero at the site of the former Twin Towers.
Mr Svilicich was buried alive under the Sari Club, dug himself free through hot embers, escaped through a hole in the concrete, and stumbled a few metres before collapsing. He was one of the last injured survivors to leave hospital and underwent 28 surgeries over the last 20 years.
“I recall I was getting ready to work on September 11 and I thought, Jesus Christ, what the hell is going on here? That was the talk of the town,” Mr Svilicich said. “It never occurred to me that one year, one month, and one day after I would be a victim of terrorism myself.”
On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Mr Svilicich travelled to New York alone to feel a kinship with those trapped in the rubble of the Twin Towers.
“It was still an empty lot over there and I started to imagine what it was like for those people in those towers,” he remembered. “There are a lot of similarities over there. Not on the same scale. It was sort of quite sombre, thinking about it. But a lot of positive as well because there are a lot of survivors from September 11 and it shows the human spirit. You can destroy those towers, but you can never really destroy the human spirit.”
For the 20th anniversary of Bali, Mr Svilicich is releasing his memoir Phoenix Rising -- Terror Victim to Burn Survivor, chronicling his story of survival, from burns to PTSD, and why his two-decade fight for a Bali Peace Park was never built.
The official Bali bombing “Ground Zero” monument listing the names of the 202 victims is across the road from the site of the Sari Club, which owner Sukamto Tjia has refused to sell to a contemplative peace garden.
Mr Svilicich, who played a critical role in the defunct Bali Peace Park Association, said their last agreed offer of $4.8m for a 1500 sqm site fell through in November 2021 when the owner demanded an additional $9m compensation for lost revenue.
“We were absolutely gobsmacked. It wasn’t us that did the bombing, it was the terrorists,” he said.
With the peace park plans collapsing, Mr Svilicich said a five-storey building, with a new nightclub, would be built on the site of the Sari Club. A development notice posted on the site in 2019 said the PT Hotel Cianjur Asri also had plans to build a 700 sqm restaurant on the plot.
“You never lose hope,” Mr Svilicich said of making the park a reality. “As time goes on, people move on in their lives and the memories fade away.”
Not at New York’s ground zero, where Australia’s Bali Bombing victims will be remembered alongside 9/11 for the first, maybe not the last, time.
“That’s awesome,” he said, wistfully. “That’s great to know.”
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