Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan Holocaust survivor and the author of NY times best selling "LEFT TO TELL", had quite a tale to tell as the guest speaker at our Office yesterday. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, CBS Early show, CNN, Al Jazeera as well on NY Times, US Today, Newsday. A major motion picture about her is in production and scheduled for a release in theaters in the year 2019.
An immaculate speaker, Immaculee's life story extraordinaire of surviving from an ethnic cleansing of colossal magnitude in her own words kept us spellbound for more than an hour. The gifted orator she was, she had an amazing command over English language and vocabulary - for it was hard to comprehend that she learnt English as a teenager in the mid 1990s.
She had a normal childhood, growing up with her caring parents and 3 brothers. It all started when she was in College and came visiting home for the Easter holidays. During her stay on 6th of April, 1994 the Rwandan President was assassinated. The sky fell upon her soon after the President's aircraft was shot and fell from the sky.
The traumatic events that followed would change her life forever. The dead President belonged to the majority Hutu tribe who came down heavily on the minority Tutsi tribe suspected of complicit in killing. Tens of thousands, including women and children were murdered or maimed in what followed the biggest holocaust since Nazi days.
Her father knew that his nemesis were closing in. Fearing rape and eventual murder of his teenage daughter, he hid her in a small bathroom. Soon 8 other women squeezed into it.
The pogrom had just began. The killers were looming large, looking at every nook and corner of house, inside attics, ceilings, rooftops, closets, even looking for kids in suticases - instantly butchering them as soon as they found any. The women were lifted away to be at the pleasure and mercy of marauders to live for now and die another day.
Immaculee could hear the cranking sound of hand trying to open the doorknob of the cramped, dilapidated bathroom where she took shelter with other girls. All froze for those endless few seconds, too scared to even breath or close their eyes. Suddenly came a sound which sounded music to their ears, a voice shouting - "There aren't any more cockroaches left. We exterminated them. Let's look elsewhere". The girls frozen blood thawed as the footsteps faded away melting in the commotion. They were still too scared to breathe shy of relief.
Days, weeks and months passed. Still ensconced in the tiny bathroom, they could hear Hutu leaders on local Radio espousing to kill kids, ascribing them as those little snakes who shouldn't live to breed more snakes. Finally, when she came out after spending 91 days inside that toilet she weighed 65 lb, looking a la a living corpse with her skin barely covering her bone. Soon she came to know about her parents, grandparents and two of his brothers victim of the massacre, with a solo brother surviving as he was studying outside.
Such are the vagaries of life. A million died in that Rwanda genocide but Immaculee survived. Many are shot and die in the hostile hills of Pakistan, but Malala survived. Both lived to tell their story and became icons.
Tragedies happen all over the globe. Some perish, some survive. The survivors are often treated as heroes earning a leash of new life as celebrities. The rest who perish soon fade into oblivion. Life ain't fair and lovely. As the popular saying goes from the Mughal rule, it can be TAKHT YA TAKHTA" - meaning "Crown or Coffin".
An immaculate speaker, Immaculee's life story extraordinaire of surviving from an ethnic cleansing of colossal magnitude in her own words kept us spellbound for more than an hour. The gifted orator she was, she had an amazing command over English language and vocabulary - for it was hard to comprehend that she learnt English as a teenager in the mid 1990s.
She had a normal childhood, growing up with her caring parents and 3 brothers. It all started when she was in College and came visiting home for the Easter holidays. During her stay on 6th of April, 1994 the Rwandan President was assassinated. The sky fell upon her soon after the President's aircraft was shot and fell from the sky.
The traumatic events that followed would change her life forever. The dead President belonged to the majority Hutu tribe who came down heavily on the minority Tutsi tribe suspected of complicit in killing. Tens of thousands, including women and children were murdered or maimed in what followed the biggest holocaust since Nazi days.
Her father knew that his nemesis were closing in. Fearing rape and eventual murder of his teenage daughter, he hid her in a small bathroom. Soon 8 other women squeezed into it.
The pogrom had just began. The killers were looming large, looking at every nook and corner of house, inside attics, ceilings, rooftops, closets, even looking for kids in suticases - instantly butchering them as soon as they found any. The women were lifted away to be at the pleasure and mercy of marauders to live for now and die another day.
Immaculee could hear the cranking sound of hand trying to open the doorknob of the cramped, dilapidated bathroom where she took shelter with other girls. All froze for those endless few seconds, too scared to even breath or close their eyes. Suddenly came a sound which sounded music to their ears, a voice shouting - "There aren't any more cockroaches left. We exterminated them. Let's look elsewhere". The girls frozen blood thawed as the footsteps faded away melting in the commotion. They were still too scared to breathe shy of relief.
Days, weeks and months passed. Still ensconced in the tiny bathroom, they could hear Hutu leaders on local Radio espousing to kill kids, ascribing them as those little snakes who shouldn't live to breed more snakes. Finally, when she came out after spending 91 days inside that toilet she weighed 65 lb, looking a la a living corpse with her skin barely covering her bone. Soon she came to know about her parents, grandparents and two of his brothers victim of the massacre, with a solo brother surviving as he was studying outside.
Such are the vagaries of life. A million died in that Rwanda genocide but Immaculee survived. Many are shot and die in the hostile hills of Pakistan, but Malala survived. Both lived to tell their story and became icons.
Tragedies happen all over the globe. Some perish, some survive. The survivors are often treated as heroes earning a leash of new life as celebrities. The rest who perish soon fade into oblivion. Life ain't fair and lovely. As the popular saying goes from the Mughal rule, it can be TAKHT YA TAKHTA" - meaning "Crown or Coffin".
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