Rwandan hero gets warm welcome at Holocaust Museum
By Mike Isaacs
June 29, 2009
Surviving genocide brought them together.
Born nearly 20 years apart and in different parts of the world, they bonded when they met; they felt a connection having experienced what no human being should, experiences that left each of them with the urgent need to proclaim now and forever, and to all who will listen: "Never again."
Sam Harris, now 74, was born in Deblin, Poland. President of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois and a leader in making the new museum and education center a reality, he lost his entire family to the Holocaust when he was just a boy. He was part of a special small group Sunday that guided guest Paul Rusesabagina on a tour of the extraordinary new facility in Skokie.
Rwandan Rusesabagina, 55, has been internationally honored for saving 1,268 civilians during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Rusesabagina is said to have used his influence and connections as temporary manager of the hotel 'Mille Collines' to shelter Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being slaughtered. His story received worldwide attention after the release of the powerful movie, "Hotel Rwanda," in which Rusesabagina was played by Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle.
During Sunday's personal tour, Museum Executive Director Rick Hirschhaut provided Rusesabagina with key information about exhibits and the purpose of the facility. Every so often, Rusesabagina would stop, adding his own experiences as a witness to genocide, educating the group that was there to educate him. In the end, the tour was a direct reflection of one of the main missions of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center -- that it not limit itself to just the horrific history of the Holocaust and what happened to European Jews in World War II, but that it dedicate itself to all genocide by taking an active role in making sure history doesn't repeat itself.
Unfortunately, both survivors on hand Sunday know that history is repeating itself every day.
In the case of Rwanda, Rusesabagina and his colleagues said, genocide may officially be over, but the killing has not stopped. The same killing has spread to the Congo in Africa. The Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, established in 2005 and now headquartered in Chicago, tries to educate and make a difference about the current-day situation in Africa.
The Foundation, in fact, has campaigned for the need for an internationally-sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, which includes Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since the genocide, Rusesabagina reminded his tour guides, 5 million people have been killed over the border in the Congo.
"It's the same thing playing out all over again," said Kitty Kurth, president of Kurth Lampe, a communications firm representing Rusesabagina and the Foundation. "Everyone thinks that the killing stopped when the genocide stopped, but the killing has continued. They just moved it behind the curtain of the Congo."
Rusesabagina believes it is critically important to call the international community's attention to mass killings, to signs that an area in conflict is vulnerable to genocide.
"A genocide doesn't happen just like that," he said. "You see it coming -- just like a car coming in slow motion in your dreams. Some people just hide themselves from seeing it."
As an example, Rusesabagina said, citizens of Rwanda experienced "the whole region burning" in 1991, 1992 and 1993 -- in the years leading up to the Rwandan genocide.
Sunday's small group representing the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation could feel the similarities between the Holocaust and the genocide they know so well. They toured the museum's main exhibition, taking them through pre-war life in Europe, through raging anti-Semitism, through the formation of Hitler's Final Solution, though mass killings on an unimaginable scale and finally to the aftermath of the Holocaust where those who survived tried to create new lives and ultimately spread the word of what had happened.
There was distinct recognition in the recounting of Nazi propaganda against the Jews and the silence from the international community when efforts were made to warn what was taking place. In almost all genocides, there are commonalities.
In many ways, Rusesabagina reflects so many of the museum's different components. He was a first-hand witness to genocide, walking history to the inhumanity that occurred 15 years ago in Rwanda. He has been an educator and has tried to spread the word about the the horror then and the horror now. And he was what the museum calls an "upstander," someone who tried to stand up to wrongdoing and save as many people as possible.
Another "upstander" invited on Sunday's tour was Eithan Barhydt, 18, a Deerfield High School graduate this year who created Youth United For Darfur, a group of young people from Chicago-area schools who try to make a difference about the genocide in Darfur.
"It just amazes me and inspires me to see people who have been so victimized be able to rise up and address their experiences toward a brighter future," he said. "I just shake my head when I see it."
One of those people is Rusesabagina, another Harris. And it seemed like perfect symmetry that the former should be at this museum Sunday with the latter, his Foundation only miles away in Chicago.
"We're very excited to welcome you to this family," Hirschhaut told him. "The mission of this museum as an education center and as a place of remembering and as a place of reconciliation is available to you and to all of your programming and to all of your work. We want to extend that open door to you."
At the end of his special tour, Rusesabagina paid great tribute to the new facility, but he also said that unless you have seen genocide first-hand, it's difficult to really know.
Harris and Rusesabagina did. They did, and they survived.
"You and I have to get together," Harris told his new friend. "We have too much in common not to sit down and talk more."
Note:
Surviving genocide brought them together.
Born nearly 20 years apart and in different parts of the world, they bonded when they met; they felt a connection having experienced what no human being should, experiences that left each of them with the urgent need to proclaim now and forever, and to all who will listen: "Never again."
Sam Harris, now 74, was born in Deblin, Poland. President of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois and a leader in making the new museum and education center a reality, he lost his entire family to the Holocaust when he was just a boy. He was part of a special small group Sunday that guided guest Paul Rusesabagina on a tour of the extraordinary new facility in Skokie.
Rwandan Rusesabagina, 55, has been internationally honored for saving 1,268 civilians during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Rusesabagina is said to have used his influence and connections as temporary manager of the hotel 'Mille Collines' to shelter Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being slaughtered. His story received worldwide attention after the release of the powerful movie, "Hotel Rwanda," in which Rusesabagina was played by Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle.
During Sunday's personal tour, Museum Executive Director Rick Hirschhaut provided Rusesabagina with key information about exhibits and the purpose of the facility. Every so often, Rusesabagina would stop, adding his own experiences as a witness to genocide, educating the group that was there to educate him. In the end, the tour was a direct reflection of one of the main missions of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center -- that it not limit itself to just the horrific history of the Holocaust and what happened to European Jews in World War II, but that it dedicate itself to all genocide by taking an active role in making sure history doesn't repeat itself.
Unfortunately, both survivors on hand Sunday know that history is repeating itself every day.
In the case of Rwanda, Rusesabagina and his colleagues said, genocide may officially be over, but the killing has not stopped. The same killing has spread to the Congo in Africa. The Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, established in 2005 and now headquartered in Chicago, tries to educate and make a difference about the current-day situation in Africa.
The Foundation, in fact, has campaigned for the need for an internationally-sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the Great Lakes Region of Africa, which includes Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Since the genocide, Rusesabagina reminded his tour guides, 5 million people have been killed over the border in the Congo.
"It's the same thing playing out all over again," said Kitty Kurth, president of Kurth Lampe, a communications firm representing Rusesabagina and the Foundation. "Everyone thinks that the killing stopped when the genocide stopped, but the killing has continued. They just moved it behind the curtain of the Congo."
Rusesabagina believes it is critically important to call the international community's attention to mass killings, to signs that an area in conflict is vulnerable to genocide.
"A genocide doesn't happen just like that," he said. "You see it coming -- just like a car coming in slow motion in your dreams. Some people just hide themselves from seeing it."
As an example, Rusesabagina said, citizens of Rwanda experienced "the whole region burning" in 1991, 1992 and 1993 -- in the years leading up to the Rwandan genocide.
Sunday's small group representing the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation could feel the similarities between the Holocaust and the genocide they know so well. They toured the museum's main exhibition, taking them through pre-war life in Europe, through raging anti-Semitism, through the formation of Hitler's Final Solution, though mass killings on an unimaginable scale and finally to the aftermath of the Holocaust where those who survived tried to create new lives and ultimately spread the word of what had happened.
There was distinct recognition in the recounting of Nazi propaganda against the Jews and the silence from the international community when efforts were made to warn what was taking place. In almost all genocides, there are commonalities.
In many ways, Rusesabagina reflects so many of the museum's different components. He was a first-hand witness to genocide, walking history to the inhumanity that occurred 15 years ago in Rwanda. He has been an educator and has tried to spread the word about the the horror then and the horror now. And he was what the museum calls an "upstander," someone who tried to stand up to wrongdoing and save as many people as possible.
Another "upstander" invited on Sunday's tour was Eithan Barhydt, 18, a Deerfield High School graduate this year who created Youth United For Darfur, a group of young people from Chicago-area schools who try to make a difference about the genocide in Darfur.
"It just amazes me and inspires me to see people who have been so victimized be able to rise up and address their experiences toward a brighter future," he said. "I just shake my head when I see it."
One of those people is Rusesabagina, another Harris. And it seemed like perfect symmetry that the former should be at this museum Sunday with the latter, his Foundation only miles away in Chicago.
"We're very excited to welcome you to this family," Hirschhaut told him. "The mission of this museum as an education center and as a place of remembering and as a place of reconciliation is available to you and to all of your programming and to all of your work. We want to extend that open door to you."
At the end of his special tour, Rusesabagina paid great tribute to the new facility, but he also said that unless you have seen genocide first-hand, it's difficult to really know.
Harris and Rusesabagina did. They did, and they survived.
"You and I have to get together," Harris told his new friend. "We have too much in common not to sit down and talk more."
Note:
Contact Mike Isaacs at "misaacs@pioneerlocal.com". For more information about the Hotel Rwandan Rusesabagina Foundation, visit http://www.hrrfoundation.org/, e-mail info@HRRFoundation.org or call (312) 498-9279.
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