It Was Part Of It, Uh . . . The Tragedy

It’s like that Curb Your Enthusiasm episode — what a day to die:

Henryk “Henry” Siwiak is the Sept. 11, 2001 murder victim few people know about — the only person not killed by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

A Polish immigrant trying to make his way in the big city, away from his wife and two children, Siwiak was gunned down in Bedford-Stuyvesant that night after getting lost on his way to a new job with a cleaning service for a Flatbush Pathmark.

Seven years later, the case remains unsolved. His family has suspected that Siwiak was mistaken for a militant Arab — he had olive skin and was wearing an military fatigue jacket — and was set upon by someone furious about the attacks.

“That rumor is out there,” says Det. Michael Prate, the 79th Precinct investigator who now has the case. “But there’s nothing there to support that. He wasn’t robbed of anything, but we think whoever did this was trying to rob him.”

. . .

The widow, who teaches elementary and high school biology, says her unique grief is oddly comforting, in that millions of others will also pause to remember on Sept. 11.

“In some kind of thinking,” she says, “it makes it easier.”