Oh, my God.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum, which opens on May 21, made me cry. It will make you cry, too, even if you lost no loved ones in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A humanely crafted engine of catharsis, it is as beautiful — at times, disturbingly so — as it is horrific.

The museum is as gut-wrenching as the sprawling memorial ground above it is cold and emotionless. And it holds back nothing in its message to every visitor:

Never forget.

This great new institution isn’t about symbols, metaphor or “narrative.” It’s about bearing witness through testimony and artifacts, free of “interpretation.”

And they will break your heart.

It looks like an abstract sculpture, a disquieting artistic piece reminding museum visitors of the carnage. But this “impact steel” was part of the facade of the north tower, and was located at the point of impact where hijacked Flight 11 pierced the building between floors 93 and 99. The jet was carrying 10,000 gallons of fuel and was traveling at about 465 mph when it hit the tower. Jin Lee Jin Lee An elevator motor from the north tower, the largest model in the world when installed, powered one of the express or service cars. For many World Trade Center workers, the decision to take the elevator meant the difference between life and death, as they became trapped when the power failed. Jin Lee A piece of one of the hijacked airplanes brings to life the horror of the attacks. In all, 76 passengers and 11 crew members aboard American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, perished when the jet crashed into the north tower at 8:46 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. And 51 passengers and nine crew members died when United Airlines Flight 175, also a 767, slammed into the south tower at 9:03 a.m. Both flights had departed that morning from Logan International Airport in Boston and were on their way to Los Angeles when they were hijacked by al Qaeda terrorists. Jin Lee The "Survivors' Staircase" Jin Lee Jin Lee The symbolic “Last Column,” a steel beam from one of the World Trade Center towers, stands near the slurry wall that held back the Hudson River from the site. The slurry walls formed “the bathtub,” a skewed rectangle with sides about 980 by 520 feet and as deep as seven stories. The wall withstood the forces of tons of collapsing debris and held in place, preventing the waters of the Hudson from flooding lower Manhattan and the PATH train tunnels after the attacks. Jin Lee Jin Lee Jin Lee This American flag, like several others found in the rubble, gives testament to New Yorkers’ patriotic spirit. AFP/Getty Images Getty Images EPA Jin Lee Jin Lee Jin Lee Jin Lee This 20-foot section of twisted metal was once part of the 360-foot transmission tower that stood atop the north tower. The tower supported 10 main television antennas, numerous auxiliary antennas and a master FM antenna. Transmission began in June 1980. Ten TV stations, including all major networks, broadcast from the mast. Jin Lee Jin Lee Firefighter Christian Waugh was among the rescue workers who recovered the body of Fire Department Chaplain Father Mychal Judge. The helmet Waugh wore that day is on display at the museum. AFP/Getty Images Getty Images On display is a standard-issue FDNY shirt that had been worn by Lt. Mickey Kross, one of 16 people who survived the north-tower collapse in a small air pocket under Stairwell B. Getty Images Prayer cards, patches and mementos of would-be rescuers who gave their lives at Ground Zero fill a glass display case at the museum. Getty Images EPA A display of missing-persons fliers recalls the anguished days and weeks after all the 9/11 attacks. The signs became part of the urban landscape near Ground Zero and were a heartbreaking reminder of the thousands of metropolitan-area residents who perished. Getty Images Injured survivors struggled for years after the attack. One, a burn victim, donated a recovery mask. Getty Images A simple pair of eyeglasses and its case are reminders of how lives were changed that day. Getty Images These were simple objects on someone's desk before a jet crashed into the tower: a phone, a Rolodex and a pair of scissors. Getty Images Victim Glenn J. Winuk's ID was found amid the rubble in the days after 9/11. Winuk, 40, a volunteer firefighter in Jericho, LI, was a partner at the law firm Holland & Knight on the corner of Broadway and Dey Street. His partial remains were found near the south tower. Getty Images Curators preserved the interior of Chelsea Jeans, including the ash-covered merchandise that owner David Cohen left undisturbed. The clothing store, which was located a block from the towers on Broadway near Fulton Street, became a makeshift shrine and a place of pilgrimage after the Sept. 11 attacks. Jin Lee Dust, ash and debris from the collapsed Twin Towers cover the clothes from the Chelsea Jeans store. Getty Images EPA Jin Lee An American Airlines slipper recovered from the hijacked planes. AP Jin Lee Architectural firm Minoru ­Yamasaki Associates built three large-scale models of the WTC for the Port Authority. This one, built from 1969 to 1971, is the largest and most detailed of the original series of presentation models that survive. Jin Lee Getty Images Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani looks over a display. EPA The countdown to Osama bin Laden's capture finally ended in May 2011, when Navy SEAL Team 6 killed him in Pakistan. Getty Images The hijackers of the four jets are on display, putting faces to the evil that brought death and destruction. Getty Images Osama bin Laden is finally dead. But the plot he masterminded will haunt victims' families forever. Getty Images "I can hear you! I can hear you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" President George W. Bush used this bullhorn to reassure rescuers -- and America. Getty Images A display tracks the path of the planes. Jin Lee The exterior of the museum. Handout Handout G.N. Miller Jin Lee G.N. Miller Jin Lee Jin Lee Jin Lee Jin Lee Ad Up Next Close Ferry captain, 3 crew members charged with homicide SEOUL, South Korea — Prosecutors indicted the captain of the... 51 View Slideshow Back Continue Share this: Facebook

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Remnants of 9/11 we’ve seen before — the famous steel cross, the survivors’ staircase — take on new majesty, thanks to inspired display and lighting.

Hardest to bear, for me, were vivid color photos of victims in the act of jumping from the towers. Equally affecting are witnesses’ impressions of the horror. One man recalled a young woman who, before leaping, modestly held her skirt down against the wind.

The painful sights come in a torrent of gorgeously mounted, smartly captioned displays: a wrecked ambulance, “missing” posters, bloodied shoes, shattered car doors, soot-covered sweaters, trapped victims’ personal papers and items spread by the 9/11 wind.

The wreck of Ladder Co. 3’s firetruck still sports its bold red and yellow colors and soaring-eagle insignia. But the cab was burned to smithereens of unidentifiable ganglia, and its entire crew of 11 perished in the towers.

Objects and elements unrecognizably damaged by the attacks resemble tragic contemporary sculpture: huge steel structural fragments rendered otherworldly, and a mysterious, gnarled knot of rods and piping.

Their tangible ruin reminds us that no abstract “clash of cultures” reduced the trade center to ashes, but exploding jet fuel and the mad will of terrorists at the controls.

Exactly one item in the entire 10,000-square-foot, mostly underground space might draw smiles: a 1973 “Godzilla vs. Megalon” movie poster where the creatures duke it out atop the Twin Towers. After that, get out your hankies.

The most wrenching displays are at bedrock level of the mostly underground structure. Wending its way seven stories below street level — deeper than the memorial waterfall pools — the museum takes guests on a slow, at first deceptively mundane, descent into hell.

The angled, above-ground entrance pavilion, glass-wrapped and decked out in sleek blond wood, could belong to a concert hall — except for a pair of fork-topped, steel tridents that helped support the north tower. Their stark forms, once white but now eloquently rusted ruins, plunge from the roof all the way to the main floor 70 feet below.

To reach it, you navigate a slightly disorienting sequence of stairs, a ramp and more stairs past 9/11 TV broadcasts that first reported the attacks and a giant photo of the Twin Towers against a blue sky, taken moments before the first plane struck.

The journey leads past the actual sunken shells of the huge waterfall pools on the tower footprint sites. An observation deck overlooks a long slurry-wall segment and a 36-foot-tall welded steel plate that was the last salvaged from the wreckage.

Yet, for all its unflinching depiction of agony and loss, the museum also celebrates New York. It honors the heroism of 9/11 and the city’s resilience and recovery.

A long escalator ride takes us back to street level and the stirring sight of teeming crowds and the new World Trade Center towers.

We came through, after all. New York endures. But thanks to this grand new institution, no one will ever forget how close we came to losing it.