Two strangers who lost their fathers to terrorism — two decades, and more than 5,000 miles apart — have become sisters in grief.
Kristin Marino, of upstate Monroe, lost her dad, Kenneth, an FDNY firefighter at Hell’s Kitchen’s Rescue Co. 1 on Sept. 11, when she was just 3 years old.
Maya Peretz of Israel was at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7 when her father, Mark, drove there to rescue her and was murdered by Hamas terrorists.
In July, the women found an instant connection after meeting for the first time at the 9/11 Memorial to film the short documentary “Our 9/11 Story,” released Friday on YouTube.
“It was very powerful, two girls, completely different countries, completely different cultures, but same loss at the end,” Peretz, 21, told The Post.
“Our stories aligned so perfectly,” added Marino, 26, a Christian social media influencer with more than 1.7M followers on TikTok. “I could relate so much to her.”
The project came about after Marino visited Israel in May 2023 to film a travel documentary with Rova Media.
“The first day we got there, there were so many missiles going off, people were running. And I went home and was like, ‘I want to go back to Israel and meet children that have been affected by terrorism,’” she said.
Marino was supposed to return to Israel on Oct. 13, but her trip was canceled due to the Hamas terror attacks, which left at least 1,200 Israelis dead.
She then learned of Peretz’s story and had to meet her.
“That was just a crazy way that it happened. I just feel like God just led me right to her,” she said.
Peretz was at the outdoor musical festival in the Negev Desert when Hamas descended, killing 364 civilians.
Her father, Mark, 51, called while she was still on the concert grounds.
“He asked me where I was and what I was doing. And I told him the truth, ‘I’m trying to get to a safe place.’ He told me he wanted to come. I told him, ‘No, don’t come now. I will tell you if I need you,’” Peretz recalled.
Mark, who tracked Maya’s location via her cell phone, knew she was in harm’s way.
“He called me and was like, ‘You’re still in there. I’m on my way.’”
Mark was on the phone with Maya’s brother while he was driving through the area as the attackers infiltrated the region.
“On the way, he saw terrorists. He drove over them. The ones that still stay alive murder him,” Peretz explains to Marino in the documentary.
“My brother heard him meeting the terrorist and getting executed,” she said.
The devoted dad didn’t think about his own fate, she said.
“He was talking with my brother and as he was entering the Gaza envelope, and told him, ‘Listen there are a lot of dead bodies here, Maya, she’s in a war zone.’ He didn’t understand that he himself was getting in this zone too.”
Marino instantly saw the similarities between their fathers’ final acts of courage.
“He went into the disaster to go save his daughter. And that was the same with my dad. My dad went into the buildings to go save other people and didn’t really know the outcome, but they just knew that they needed to do that,” Marino said.
In the film, Peretz, whose dad’s body was found five days after he went missing, is overcome with emotion as Marino explains her father’s body was never recovered.
“It was only five days, but my heart in those days, the feeling that I had in my body that I don’t know where he is, it’s insane, so I’m thinking, 20 plus years to feel it,” said Peretz.
Peretz, a student who wants to become either a lawyer or a teacher, thought her dad, whom she describes as a “warrior,” would return home. It is a feeling Marino found familiar.
“I still have this weird thing in my head that he’s going to come home and I know he’s not, but like a little bit like in my heart, I’m just like, ‘Well, what if he does?’” she said.
Marino happened to be in Manhattan on 9/11 for a modeling shoot, so her mom took her and her brother to visit their 40-year-old father at his West 43rd Street firehouse that morning.
The kids got to sit in the firetruck he would later drive to Ground Zero.
“He placed me and my brother in that same truck that literally got crushed like an hour later,” Marino said.
For the film, Marino and her mom visited Rescue 1, and heard a story about Kenneth’s selflessness.
“When he was in the towers, he had stopped for a guy that was having a heart attack and didn’t want to leave him,” Marino said.
“And all the guys were like, ‘Come on, we have a bigger thing to do.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, but I need to help him.’”
The newfound friends are committed to keeping their fathers’ memories alive.
“I will never forget and I will never stop telling my dad’s story,” Marino said.
Peretz said she will honor her dad by “living like him,” because “he was a very good person.”
The duo also hope the film will send a message of hope to other children who lost parents to terrorism.
“Don’t give up on your life because this tragedy happened,” Peretz said.
