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She survived, although she could hear the voices of her former friends and neighbors out the window calling her name and telling her they would find her and kill her.
She survived learning her family was murdered except for one brother who lived outside the country.
She survived, and with the help of faith, she even learned to forgive.
Immaculee Ilibagiza, Rwandan genocide survivor, will tell her story next month at Viterbo University.
“I talk about forgiveness, overcoming difficulty in your life and how to trust and hold on to hope,” Ilibagiza said.
In 1994, nearly 1 million Rwandans were slaughtered during the course of a few months. Learning forgiveness wasn’t easy, Ilibagiza said, and there were times in hiding she would sweat with anger learning about the killing of people she loved.
She wanted to become a soldier and kill, too, but instead she prayed from morning to night that she could forgive. Later, when faced with the killer of her mother and brother she said, “I forgive you.”
“She is a living example of the undefeatable human spirit, and her story is timeless,” said Darryle Clott, a local holocaust educator who has brought past holocaust survivors to the area.
Clott wanted to bring Ilibagiza to La Crosse after reading her best-selling book, “Left to Tell: Discovering
God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.”
“The book is an incredible story addressing the best and worst aspects of our humanity,” Clott said. “My personal copy of the book is so marked up because so many things hit me so strongly.”
Regardless of where people come from, they suffer for the same things and crave for the same things, Ilibagiza said. She is inspired when people use her story to draw parallels to their own lives. Many write her to tell her that her story changed their life. They needed to forgive or have hope, and now they understand how, she said.
“Somehow in the middle of everything our souls speak to each other, and you forget about the differences,” she said.
If you go
What: Talk by Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor
When: 7 p.m. Sept. 22
Where: Viterbo University’s Fine Art Center Main Theatre
Tickets: $10; on sale beginning at 11 a.m. today at the Viterbo Box office, (608) 796-3100
On the Web: To learn more about Ilibagiza and her latest book, visit www.immaculee.com.
The series: The presentation is the opening event for the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership’s Fall Lecture Series
