Bird Library’s ‘Pursuit of Justice’ exhibit honors the legacies of Pan Am Flight 103 victims
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A photo of Philip Haigh and his rescue dog, Tosh, is displayed in a case on the sixth floor of Bird Library. The photo is next to a map of Lockerbie that details the damage from the Pan Am Flight 103 terrorist attack.
After the attack, Haigh was part of Scotland’s emergency response team in Lockerbie, Scotland, where the plane crashed. He helped find the remains of SU student Shannon Davis, whose honorary banner hangs across the room from the photo of Haigh. Haigh also helped find Davis’ belongings, which are now part of the university’s Special Collection Resource Center.
The Davis family and Haigh still keep in touch.
“You want the items to talk to each other, as sort of strange as that might sound, but to work together to tell a story and help us understand clearly, without sensationalizing anything,” said Pan Am 103 Archivist Vanessa St. Oegger-Menn.
On Dec. 21, 1988, terrorists bombed Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people, including 35 SU students returning from study abroad. For the 35th anniversary of the Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, St. Oegger-Menn curated an exhibit, “In Pursuit of Justice: Pan Am Flight 103,” to help a new generation understand the attack from the day it occurred to the present.
To map out the 35 years, St. Oegger-Menn created a timeline that tracked the investigations into Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who was convicted of the attack in 2001, and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, who was acquitted in 2001. St. Oegger-Menn said it was important to find a way to give a clear history, especially as the investigation into the attack is ongoing.
During the fall 2022 semester, a swastika and antisemitic language were found in the archives in letters sent home by the Coker twins, two college students who died on the flight. While the archives team does not want to make people feel unsupported by finding insensitive material, the curation process of “In Pursuit of Justice” did not change after the incident, St. Oegger-Menn said.
Isabella Flores | Assistant Photo Editor
With artifacts from victims and information about the effects of the bombing, the exhibit hopes to educate new generations about the tragedy. The exhibit introduces students to “the pursuit of justice” through these primary sources. Isabella Flores | Assistant Photo Editor
Developing the exhibition took St. Oegger-Menn eight months. Working on the exhibit allowed her to take a deep dive into the collection and find documents that could convey exactly what she wanted, she said. The current exhibit put a special emphasis on highlighting those who sought justice through both the legal system and by supporting victims’ families, she said.
“We have a lot of folks here who, Pan Am 103, it happened long before they were born. It’s not something that they personally remember,” St. Oegger-Menn said. “They may have some familiarity with it because of being here at Syracuse where we have such a connection to the disaster.”
In her research, St. Oegger-Menn learned more about how the attack impacted Lockerbie in the days following the disaster. The exhibit also expanded the views of attendees such as Saanika Dhillion, a museum studies graduate student who grew up in the United Kingdom.
“I have heard of it growing up in the UK, we just refer to it as the Lockerbie bombing, and hearing it being called ‘Pan Am Flight disaster’ is a completely different point of view,” Dhillon said. “I didn’t really know, until I got here, about the connection to Syracuse because I was wondering why there was so much discussion about it.”
The “Pursuit of Justice” exhibit features personal items of victims like SU student Gary Colasanti’s camera and photographs. It’s a way to empathize with the history, St. Oegger-Menn said. Most of the items in the exhibit are primary sources.
“The Nexus (of the archives) is primary sources because we think that there’s so much more to activate, and not just those direct sort of traces and touches to all of these people’s places and events, but it also brings a lot of openings because there’s a lot of room for people to pursue inquiry,” said Jana Rosinski, the SCRC’s instruction and education librarian.
Rosinski works with classes on campus but also works to bring the local community from middle and high school groups to senior citizens groups to campus to explore the “Pursuit of Justice” exhibit. St. Oegger-Menn will be giving tours for groups such as the Remembrance Scholars.
St. Oegger-Menn wanted to find a way to bring lighter material to the sixth-floor space so that visitors weren’t immediately confronted with the harsher aspects of the material. To do so, she chose to work with The Alexia, a foundation set up by the parents of Alexia Tsairis.
Alexia was a photojournalism major in the Newhouse School of Public Communication and one of 35 SU students killed in the bombing. The Alexia gives grants to photographers attending SU, and the 2023 winners’ work is part of the exhibit as well.
“Everything that we do, there’s never one story,” Rosinski said. “So everything that we’re doing, we’re trying to bring out different voices that are silent perspectives that are heard from to give people more exposure and understanding to contextualize any moment in history.”
