Genocide Memorials

Yesterday, Monday, we went to some of the genocide memorials around Rwanda. I’ll spare you some of the worst details since I know that’s not why you’re reading my blog, but fair warning, it was pretty hard to see, so it might be hard to read. If you want to know more, just message/email me and I’ll tell you.

The first memorial we went to was a Catholic church where about 5,000 people had been killed. In past attacks on Tutsis, people had fled to the churches and were safe there, but this time, that was not the case. Many times, priests were foreigners and either left their congregations or led the militias or soldiers there to kill the people. The original buildings have been preserved, including the holes blown in them by grenades. In the chapel, all of the pews, stone benches, were lined with the clothes of victims—each pew was piled at least a foot deep, and the clothes were very dirty and torn. There were clothes on the rafters too. The whole church now serves as a burial site, so in the back, they had the bones of many of the victims who were killed there on shelves—arm and leg bones, hips, and skulls. In the front, they had both the objects brought by the victims and the weapons used by the perpetrators—spiked clubs, machetes, but they couldn’t have the guns or grenades out. They also took us to see the sachristy, kitchen, and Sunday school where people were also killed. The next memorial was a bigger Catholic church where 20,000 people were killed. Maybe it was 40,000. They did the same thing with the clothes on the pews and displayed the artifacts on the altar. They had bones displayed below the chapel as well as a coffin of a woman who was killed. Out back, they had the tomb of an Italian lady who stayed to help the victims when most other westerners left. They also had several mass graves that contained all the bodies of the victims who died at that site. The mass graves were catacombs of sorts. We walked down these steep stairs into this dark, narrow passage no more than 2 feet wide that had shelves of bones and caskets stacked high. That was incredibly moving. We were all so silent throughout the tours of the memorials.

Later that afternoon, we went to a memorial in Kigali—Gisenyi, I think it was called. This was a museum that our teacher, Apollon, helped design. He was featured in the museum a few times as well. The museum contained pictures, captions, stories, videos, and artifacts from the genocide and began with life before colonialism, then showed life during and after. When it got to the genocide, two of the pictures got me most—but I’ll only tell you about one unless you want to hear about the other. The one picture was of the same church we were in only a few hours earlier—the first memorial we visited. I could pick out the places where I was standing and walking—places, in this picture, covered with bodies. It was intense, so much more real. Another part that really got me was pictures of scars and wounds of survivors. The last part of the museum inside had profiles of children who were killed telling us what their favorite foods were, favorite color, best friend, etc. and then how they were killed. It was so incredibly sad, especially since they were just kids—how could they have even remotely been a threat?? Out back, they had several mass graves and memorial gardens. The gardens were beautiful and were a good way to wind down. I think there were several hundred thousand people buried there. Over a quarter million.

We came back and had a debriefing session, talking about what all we saw and thought. The memorials were a very hard thing to see. The clothes and the bones just made everything so real, as if it weren’t already real enough. What struck me most, though, was that although this happened almost 18 years ago, this city and this country are so vibrant. There’s so much growth and development that has taken place, that is taking place, and that is planned that it’s incredible. Even though everyone here over the age of 18 has a story, this city still carries on. Not to gloss over the immense trauma that I’m sure everyone sustained, though. It has definitely affected the culture and the people, but it also seems to have given the survivors a drive to move forward.

We’re going to see another memorial in Butare in about a week, and that one is supposed to be the toughest of them all. It’s another church, I believe, and essentially, the place has been preserved and untouched since the genocide. That will be quite a day.

So yeah, sorry if this was too much to read. This is the reality of Rwanda, though. And it’s inescapable.