Two Million Dollars From Bertelsmann To Terror Victims

GERMANY: The whole world is still in shock after Tuesday’s terrorist attack on The World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. During these days rescue teams are still searching for survivors in the ruins of The World Trade Centre on Manhattan, but the hope to find more of the thousands of people that were buried when the two towers collapsed, is quickly fading, leaving the possibility that there will be several thousand victims after the worst terrorist act ever.

All the thousands of bereaved, who are missing family members, are now receiving help from the music industry. The company Bertelsmann AG decided on Wednesday, that it is going to support the bereaved with two million dollars. This acute economic help is in the first place to be understood as a helping gesture in sympathy to the suffering in USA.

Bertelsmann AG’s Chairman of the board, Thomas Middelhoff, has also asked the 5000 people who are working in the Bertelsmann media houses in New York to give blood in order to help the treatment of wounded survivors from the tragedy. Tuesday, after the attacks were made, the company arranged telephone hotlines in order to organize information and help.

– Our answer to the terror can only be civil courage and solidarity. We have to make common cause with the victims, the survivors, the bereaved, with the American people, and we have to make common cause with our colleges in the USA, says Thomas Middelhoff to Musicwoche.de.

The Bertelsmann building at Times Square was not hit during the attack. Bertelsmann is the greatest German employer in the USA with 20,000 people working there.