Remembrance Day

From: Julie Subrin
Length: 11:48

A visit to a Rwandan memorial raises questions about when and how we remember genocide. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Remembrance Day
From: Julie Subrin

Murambi_hillside_small During a previous trip to Rwanda, Gregory Warner had heard about the genocide memorial in Murambi. This time, he decided to see for himself. The memorial is in a schoolhouse on top of a hill in the countryside where, in 1994, 40,000 Tutsis were massacred in just four days. After the massacre, the murderers covered the bodies with lime to mask the smell. As an unintended consequence, the lime preserved the bodies, and when relatives came looking for those who had died, they discovered those bodies, and decided to put them on display in the school - a kind of testimony to what occurred. Today, the bodies of men, women and children fill twenty-four classrooms.

During Warner's visit to this shockingly stark memorial, he meets two survivors, Francois Ursunganu and Wilton Ndasinga, as well as James Smith, a British Holocaust educator working to construct a memorial to replace the schoolhouse. In conversations with these three men, Warner, whose Jewish grandfather lost most of his family in the Holocaust, considers the challenges survivors of genocide face in trying to honor the memory of those who died, without being consumed with grief and horror. This challenge is particularly acute in Rwanda, where, fifteen years after the genocide, victims and perpetrators must live side by side.

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Piece Description

During a previous trip to Rwanda, Gregory Warner had heard about the genocide memorial in Murambi. This time, he decided to see for himself. The memorial is in a schoolhouse on top of a hill in the countryside where, in 1994, 40,000 Tutsis were massacred in just four days. After the massacre, the murderers covered the bodies with lime to mask the smell. As an unintended consequence, the lime preserved the bodies, and when relatives came looking for those who had died, they discovered those bodies, and decided to put them on display in the school - a kind of testimony to what occurred. Today, the bodies of men, women and children fill twenty-four classrooms.

During Warner's visit to this shockingly stark memorial, he meets two survivors, Francois Ursunganu and Wilton Ndasinga, as well as James Smith, a British Holocaust educator working to construct a memorial to replace the schoolhouse. In conversations with these three men, Warner, whose Jewish grandfather lost most of his family in the Holocaust, considers the challenges survivors of genocide face in trying to honor the memory of those who died, without being consumed with grief and horror. This challenge is particularly acute in Rwanda, where, fifteen years after the genocide, victims and perpetrators must live side by side.

Broadcast History

Posted as podcast on Nextbook.org on March 30, 2009.

Intro and Outro

INTRO:

It took nearly three years for Israel’s parliament to agree on when an official Holocaust Remembrance Day should be observed. One idea was that it be linked to the siege of ancient Jerusalem, leading to the destruction of the Second Temple… but that seemed too far removed. Others wanted it to be tied to the first day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but on the Jewish calendar that date marked the start of Passover, which is supposed to be a celebration; Orthodox Jews objected. Finally, in 1951, a compromise was reached. This year, observance falls on April 21st.

April is also the month when Rwandans remember their genocide. In 1994, close to a million Rwandan Tutsis were killed by their fellow Hutus in about three months. The killings were stopped only when Tutsi refugees living in neighboring countries invaded. Today, Rwanda is a peaceful state, with a Tutsi president. But how is Rwanda supposed to go about memorializing the murder of so many, especially when Tutsis and Hutus are living side by side?

Gregory Warner sends us this dispatch...

OUTRO:

Gregory Warner is an independent producer and writer living in New York. He originally produced this story for Nextbook dot org, an online Jewish culture magazine.