Alicia "Tania" Esteve Head:The Woman Who Wasn't There - November 2024

  Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfYQfeLuSrQ

Alicia "Tania" Esteve Head is a Spanish businesswoman who claimed to be a survivor of the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, under the name Tania Head. She joined the World Trade Center Survivors' Network support group, later becoming its president. Her name was regularly mentioned in media reports of the attacks. In 2007, it was revealed Head's story was a hoax; she was not in New York City on September 11, 2001, but in reality was attending classes in her native city, Barcelona.

Alicia Esteve Head was born on July 31, 1973, in Barcelona Spain. Head came from a prominent Barcelona family that was involved in a 1992 financial scandal for which her father and two siblings served prison terms. She attended the University of Barcelona and worked for Hotel de la Villa Olímpica, a Spanish hotel company. She later worked in Barcelona as a management secretary from 1998 to 2000 and was enrolled in a master's degree program at ESADE in 2001 when the September 11 attacks took place.

Head traveled to the U.S. for the first time in 2003. The following year, she joined the World Trade Center Survivors' Network after Gerry Bogacz, one of its founders, learned through word of mouth that a woman named "Tania Head" had developed an online support group for 9/11 survivors. 

After many months of email correspondence with Bogacz, she merged their groups. The network's purpose was to provide support for survivors of the attacks, as most public support was paid to a select group of victims, victims' families and first responders; the organization intended to bring together and support those who were also affected by the attacks, including civilians present at the World Trade Center as well as the personnel and volunteers involved in the extensive rescue and recovery efforts afterward.  Head was never paid for these activities, nor for her involvement with the Survivors' Network, and in fact donated money to the group.

Head claimed to have been inside the South Tower (WTC 2) when United Airlines Flight 175 hit, crawling through smoke and flames on the 78th floor and  had severe burns to her arm. If true, this would have made her one of only nineteen people at or above the point of impact to have survived.

Head claimed that her fiancé Dave was killed in the North Tower (WTC 1), though in later tellings of the story, she said that "Dave" was actually her husband.She also claimed that a dying man passed his wedding ring to her so it could be returned to his widow, and that she had been rescued by Welles Crowther, whose heroic actions on that day were widely reported in the media. Head was interviewed in the media, invited to speak at university conferences, and in 2005, was chosen to lead tours for the Tribute WTC Visitor Center, where she was photographed with NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former New York Governor George Pataki.

Head regularly recounted her claims to Ground Zero tour groups in vivid detail, saying, "I was there at the towers. I'm a survivor. I'm going to tell you about that."She was featured in retrospective 9/11 articles as a representative of the 20,000 surviving victims who escaped the damaged buildings. Richard Zimbler, her successor as president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, said, "There was no reason to doubt her story. She looked the part. She had a badly injured arm that appeared to have burn scars and her story was very, very realistic." 

Among the 500 survivors in the support group who shared their story, Tania's stood out. Despite her traumatic tale, Tania actively supported the survivor's group by preparing materials, hosting fundraisers, creating meeting agendas, and even using her own money to fund specialised trauma experts. Through her work, Tania also secured state funding for the Survivors’ Network, but as her story gained world-wide media attention, the details Tania added to her story stirred up suspicion from other survivors.

In September 2007, The New York Times sought to verify key details of Head's story as part of an anniversary piece. Head claimed a degree from Harvard University and a graduate business degree from Stanford University, but those institutions had no record of her. She claimed she had been working at Merrill Lynch  in the South Tower, but Merrill Lynch had no record of her employment, nor did Merrill Lynch have offices in the World Trade Center at the time of the attacks. Head backed out of three scheduled interviews, and later refused to speak to reporters at all. The Times then contacted other members of the Survivors’ Network, and raised questions about the veracity of Head's story. By the week of September 27, 2007, the Network voted to remove her as president and as a director of the group.

Among other questionable elements of Head's story was her engagement to a man nicknamed "Big Dave", who had perished in the opposite tower. The man's family claimed to have never heard of Tania Head.

A Barcelona newspaper ultimately revealed that Head had been in class at ESADE in Barcelona during the 9/11 attacks, where she had told her classmates that her scarred arm was the result of an automobile accident many years earlier. The newspaper reported that Head attended classes in the program until June 2002, and had told classmates she wanted to work in New York.

After Head's fraud was exposed, she declined all further interviews and abruptly left New York.  In February 2008, an anonymous email was sent from a Spanish account to members of the World Trade Center Survivors Network, claiming that Head had died by suicide. This suicide claim turned out to be yet another lie. In 2012, a book and feature film documentary, both titled The Woman Who Wasn't There, told Head's story from inside the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, utilizing interviews with Head and members of the Network before and after her deception was revealed. 

As details of her elaborate story unfolded, survivors discussed how they felt conflicted by her deception. Although horrified by her lies, those in the Survivors’ Network couldn't dismiss what she had helped them achieve."I’m very torn," survivor Carrie Coen Sullivan explained in a Channel 4 documentary, "She did a lot of good for our network. It’s hard to discredit it all. But she didn’t have to lie. She could have done those things without needing to lie."

In July 2012, Head was fired from her position at Inter Partner Assistance, an insurance company in Barcelona, once her employers found out about her ruse in New York. In 2021, she opened a renovation company in Barcelona. She was photographed on September 8 in Terrassa, a city in the province of Barcelona.

 

1.Vocabulary

    Paragraph 1

1.	hoax	a.	.to make previously unknown or secret information known to others
2.	word of mouth	b.	.a humorous or malicious deception.
3.	merged	c.	.move forward on the hands and knees or by dragging the body close to the ground.
4.	first responders	d.	.attempt to find something
5.	crawling	e.	.combine to form a single entity.
6.	revealed	f.	.a person whose job involves being the first on the scene of an emergency, such as a firefighter or police officer.
7.	sought(past of seek)	g.	When someone finds out about something—a product, an event, a service, a place, a work—through someone else

    Paragraph 2

8.	scar	h.	. an action intended to deceive someone
9.	backed out	i.	.pass away, especially in a violent or sudden way.
10.	record(n.)	j.	.withdraw from a commitment
11.	perished	k.	. to cause someone to feel a strong emotion and a desire to do something.
12.	ruse	l.	. to be very noticeable
13.	stirred up	m.	.a document or piece of evidence about the past, especially an account kept in writing or some other permanent form.
14.	stood out	n.	.a mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound or burn has not healed completely, cicatrix

2. SYNONYM MATCH: Match the following synonyms from the article.

1. claim
2. hoax
3. siblings
4. enroll
5. point of impact
6.  vivid
7.  prominent
8.  took place
9.  successor
10.  key
11. veracity
12. questionable
13. abruptly
14. recounted
15. torn

1. .register
2. .declare
3. .swindle
4. .clear and detailed 
5. .brother(s) and/or sister(s)
6. .occurred
7. .crucial
8.  next in line
9. accuracy
10. .collision
11. .important, famous 
12. .suddenly and unexpectedly
13. .suspicious
14. describe
15. conflicted, undecided

3.Tragic Events

Choose one of these tragics event and share with us what you know about them.  Role  A – Hipercor Bombing

Role  B – Madrid Train Bombing

Role  C –  2017 Barcelona Attacks

Role  D – Bataclan Role  E – Sinking of the Titanic  Role F- Atomic Bomb on Horishima and Nagasaki Role G - Chernobyl Nuclear Accident  Role  H – Pearl Harbour .                                                                                                                                                                     4. New York City vs Barcelona: What do you know about these things about New York? How would you compare it to Barcelona? Complete this table .   NYC Barcelona Nickname     Sites      People     Safety     Price     Housing      5.Fill in the blanks. 1. After the investigation, the public found out that Ms Head was lying . She was caught             -           . 2. She is now a very famous liar. In other words,  she is a                        liar .  3.For many years, Ms Head was lying but nobody knew about it. For many years, she was                                                 . 4. One of the victims says she feels torn about Ms Head. On one hand, she brought a lot of attention, help and money to the survivor's organization. But on the other hand, she betrayed everyone's trust with her incredible lies. Some think of her actions as a             -                           . 5. If going to New York is a dream of yours, it is on your                                    . 6. If you leave New York disappointed after having such great expectations, then if someone asks you your opinion about New York , you can say: It's                           .  7. If one of your complaints about New York is that everything is expensive and more than it deserves, then it is                            . 8.If you find a neighborhood there where you can stay for an affordable price, but the quality of the service is great, then it is a                    . 9.If your ticket to New York was cheap because you bought it very early, this kind of deal is called the                                         . 10.If your friends asks you for recommendations for places to eat and you advise them to avoid all the restaurants near the main sites, it is because the food there is often not good and too expensive. These places are known as                                        .

6.Discussion 

1. Do you remember where you were when you heard about 9/11?
2. Who was responsible for 9/11 and why did it happen?
3. What was the consequence of 9/11?
4. What do you think motivated Ms Head to act the way she did ?
5. What kind of punishment do you think Ms Head deserves?