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DOCUMENTARIANS LEARN WAYS TO BEST PRESERVE HISTORY OF RWANDA'S PAINFUL PAST
by Elizabeth Lee
Voice of America News
November 10, 2011
Four staff members from the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in
Rwanda recently traveled to Los Angeles to learn techniques on how to
best preserve the oral history of what happened in Rwanda 17 years
ago. As many as one million people lost their lives in the Rwandan
Tutsi genocide of 1994. Many people did survive the horror, and their
stories are waiting to be heard.
Yves Kamuromsi and three of his colleagues traveled thousands of
miles from home to the University of Southern California to learn
how to best document and preserve a painful past.
"My elder brother and my parents were both killed," said Kamuromsi.
Kamuromsi was only 13 when the Rwandan genocide occurred. He said
the worst part of the experience is the aftermath.
"First of all you ask the questions like, 'why did that happen?' and
'why [did] that [happen] to you and your family?' but at the same
time you ask yourself why you're alone. For example, when you start
going to school you find [it] difficult because no parents," he said.
For Kamuromsi, talking about his experience and sharing it with other
survivors helps.
"It's important because you get to learn the experience of others. At
some point you may feel that you're a lucky survivor because you may
see that some others have experienced [more] horrible things than you
did. So I think sharing stories is a part of the healing process,"
said Kamuromsi.
Having survivors speak
Kamuromsi now heads the documentation center at the Kigali Genocide
Memorial Center in Rwanda. He has videotaped and interviewed other
survivors of the genocide. He said since 2004, his team has collected
200 interviews.
"There are more than 300,000 survivors, but the difficult question is:
'Are they ready to start talking,'" he said.
For many survivors it is still too soon.
"The Rwandan genocide was 17 years ago, but for me it was this
morning. It's still that vivid," said retired Lieutenant General Romeo
Dallaire. He was the force commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force
during the Rwandan genocide. He said it is important for survivors
tell their stories so the suffering caused by the brutality of their
attackers is not lost to the rest of the world.
"The rest of the world also lost its sense of humanity because it
let that slaughter happen. We saw it in the media, we heard about it,
it was going on for 100 days and we did nothing," said Dallaire.
Archiving the stories
The Shoah Foundation Institute at the University of Southern California
has been collaborating with the Rwandan team collecting the survivor
interviews. Established in 1994 by movie director Steven Spielberg
after his movie Shindler's List, the Shoah Foundation Institute
collected 52,000 testimonies of the survivors of the Holocaust.
Now, the institute is training Kamuromsi and his colleagues to better
conduct interviews, and about how to store, preserve and archive the
survivors' stories. The institute also is collecting video testimonies
of the survivors of the mass killings in Cambodia and Armenia.
The executive director of the institute, Stephen Smith, said while
each case is different, there are commonalities.
"We absolutely need to be able to compare the causes and the
consequences of genocide. If we know what happened and we understand
the pattern and the similarities, it gives us that early warning,
and nobody knows better than the victims what happens in a situation
of genocide, so their voices are a warning for our future," said Smith.
The stories from Rwanda and other countries will be sent to computer
servers in California and then distributed to 34 universities and
museums around the world, where the voices of the survivors can
be heard.
by Elizabeth Lee
Voice of America News
November 10, 2011
Four staff members from the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in
Rwanda recently traveled to Los Angeles to learn techniques on how to
best preserve the oral history of what happened in Rwanda 17 years
ago. As many as one million people lost their lives in the Rwandan
Tutsi genocide of 1994. Many people did survive the horror, and their
stories are waiting to be heard.
Yves Kamuromsi and three of his colleagues traveled thousands of
miles from home to the University of Southern California to learn
how to best document and preserve a painful past.
"My elder brother and my parents were both killed," said Kamuromsi.
Kamuromsi was only 13 when the Rwandan genocide occurred. He said
the worst part of the experience is the aftermath.
"First of all you ask the questions like, 'why did that happen?' and
'why [did] that [happen] to you and your family?' but at the same
time you ask yourself why you're alone. For example, when you start
going to school you find [it] difficult because no parents," he said.
For Kamuromsi, talking about his experience and sharing it with other
survivors helps.
"It's important because you get to learn the experience of others. At
some point you may feel that you're a lucky survivor because you may
see that some others have experienced [more] horrible things than you
did. So I think sharing stories is a part of the healing process,"
said Kamuromsi.
Having survivors speak
Kamuromsi now heads the documentation center at the Kigali Genocide
Memorial Center in Rwanda. He has videotaped and interviewed other
survivors of the genocide. He said since 2004, his team has collected
200 interviews.
"There are more than 300,000 survivors, but the difficult question is:
'Are they ready to start talking,'" he said.
For many survivors it is still too soon.
"The Rwandan genocide was 17 years ago, but for me it was this
morning. It's still that vivid," said retired Lieutenant General Romeo
Dallaire. He was the force commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force
during the Rwandan genocide. He said it is important for survivors
tell their stories so the suffering caused by the brutality of their
attackers is not lost to the rest of the world.
"The rest of the world also lost its sense of humanity because it
let that slaughter happen. We saw it in the media, we heard about it,
it was going on for 100 days and we did nothing," said Dallaire.
Archiving the stories
The Shoah Foundation Institute at the University of Southern California
has been collaborating with the Rwandan team collecting the survivor
interviews. Established in 1994 by movie director Steven Spielberg
after his movie Shindler's List, the Shoah Foundation Institute
collected 52,000 testimonies of the survivors of the Holocaust.
Now, the institute is training Kamuromsi and his colleagues to better
conduct interviews, and about how to store, preserve and archive the
survivors' stories. The institute also is collecting video testimonies
of the survivors of the mass killings in Cambodia and Armenia.
The executive director of the institute, Stephen Smith, said while
each case is different, there are commonalities.
"We absolutely need to be able to compare the causes and the
consequences of genocide. If we know what happened and we understand
the pattern and the similarities, it gives us that early warning,
and nobody knows better than the victims what happens in a situation
of genocide, so their voices are a warning for our future," said Smith.
The stories from Rwanda and other countries will be sent to computer
servers in California and then distributed to 34 universities and
museums around the world, where the voices of the survivors can
be heard.