Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

“My name is Immaculée Ilibagiza. This is the story of how I discovered God during one of history’s bloodiest holocausts.”

As a spiritually-oriented biography, Left to Tell is told from Immaculée’s unique perspective. Stating her name at the outset of the book sets the tone that the story to follow is largely subjective. Not everyone believes in God or is religious, and so this accommodates readers of all backgrounds.

“How ironic that I was the one left to tell our family story.”

In the first chapter, it is revealed that Immaculée will be one of the very few survivors in her family, foreshadowing the violence to come. The “ironic” part of this sentence is a nod to Rwanda’s patriarchal society, where women are meant to be seen not heard. It is ironic that Immaculée, a woman, is the only one left with a voice.

“It was scary out there, but within the walls of the school I never felt any ethnic discrimination. Teachers never took ethnic roll call, and while most of the girls were Hutu, we loved each other like we were family.”

Immaculée attends a private high school, which is the school she refers to in the above quote. Education, much like religion, does not foster discrimination. Immaculée’s family embraces education, as well as religion, so Immaculée is twice removed from the prejudice that animates the genocide.

“My brothers couldn’t believe that our father was so forgiving. They’d known Kabayi their entire lives and were outraged that he’d turned on our dad.”

Foreshadowing the genocide’s imminent start, Immaculée’s father is arrested by Kabayi, a local Hutu politician who once was a good friend to her father. This is another example of the confusion of the sudden hatred among Hutu and Tutsi neighbors that had existed peacefully together. Immaculée’s brothers do not understand how their father can forgive Kabayi so easily, but as a wise man (and a man of God), Immaculée’s father is able to forgive.

“It was such a typical evening that it was hard to believe our world was about to change forever.”

Many Tutsi families like Immaculée’s have lived in relative peace among Hutus for decades. Though the conflict is long-standing, Immaculée notes how sudden it felt when the ethnic cleansing killings broke out in earnest. Immaculée’s family could not have known the major disruption that is about to begin that very night.

“I wish I had known that that night was to be our last family supper together. I would have stood up and thanked God for all of them. I would have told everyone sitting around that table how much I loved them and thanked them for loving me. But I didn’t know.”

Immaculée recounts many anecdotes in Left to Tell from this retrospective, mournful perspective. If she had known that genocide was on the horizon, she might have done things differently. She tries to reconcile the sadness of not having been able to say goodbye to so many of her family members—her parents, as well as her brothers Damascene and Vianney—before they died.

“I hesitate to use the word reported because the man on the radio sounded more like a cheerleader for the killers than a journalist. When he announced that presidential guard soldiers had taken it upon themselves to kill Tutsis to avenge the president’s death, he made the killings sound justified.”

With the national broadcast service in Rwanda being so skewed toward Hutu sympathies, it was not uncommon for hate speech to be called “news.” This type of language perpetuates violence. It helps Hutus justify their deplorable actions toward the Tutsis.

“I felt selfish for crying and dried my eyes. Silly girl, I thought, cry later. This tragedy is just beginning, and there will be plenty of time for tears.”

Immaculée’s story is one of incredible strength and perseverance. The eve of the genocide’s beginning is one of the only moments when Immaculée is able to cry about her situation. The rest of the time, she must maintain vigilance in order to stay alive.

“Dad collapsed on the ground—he just passed out—he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He’d told people that things would get better, but now he saw that he was wrong, and that it was too late to do anything about it. His whole life was burning up in front of him.”

The losses that Immaculée’s family and other Tutsis suffer are not only physical—though, certainly physical torture and loss of life are the primary elements—they are emotional, as we see when Immaculée’s father is made to watch the house that he built by himself for his family destroyed in an instant.

“And there we were, six Tutsi women who were virtually strangers to each other, except for two things we had in common: We were hunted, and we had nowhere else to hide.”

This is the fateful moment that sets the stage for the rest of the book: When this group of Tutsi women is brought together for the first time, they do not realize that they will spend the next three months confined to a single bathroom, fearing for their lives.

“I decided to go with them, but then changed my mind…and changed it again and again. How could I protect them if we were attacked? I might even slow them down. More attention would be drawn to them if they were with a woman, and that would get us all killed.”

Immaculée deliberates if she should join her brother Vianney when Pastor Murinzi, the man Immaculée and her brother have sought refuge from, explains that Vianney cannot stay at the pastor’s home because it is too dangerous for the pastor to harbor men. Vianney must brave the genocidal conditions by himself. Immaculée’s internal monologue shows the difficulty of the decision that she is forced to make in wartime conditions. Also, the different treatment of men and women during wartime is highlighted in this passage.

“I prayed more intensely than I’d ever prayed before, but still the negative energy wracked my spirit. The voice of doubt was in my ear again as surely as if Satan himself were sitting on my shoulder.”

The primary arc of Immaculée’s narrative revolves around faith, which is tested by genocide. Doubts about God, due to the evils of human nature, try her belief in God. Ultimately, she retains belief in God, and this narrative is largely a religious one.

“One night I heard screaming not far from the house, and then a baby crying. The killers must have slain the mother and left her infant to die in the road. The child wailed all night; by morning, its cries were feeble and sporadic, and by nightfall, it was silent.”

The trauma from the horrors that Immaculée and other survivors of the Rwandan genocide experience cannot be understated. This is one of many examples of the extreme level of violence that Immaculée bears witness to.

“It seemed that every Hutu in Rwanda had a gun or machete, along with orders to use them on Tutsis—and no one in the world was lifting a finger to stop them.”

Foreign intervention in Rwandan affairs—whether from colonialism or from United Nations assistance during the genocide—presents an irony. On the one hand, foreigners are eager to intervene in Rwanda during colonialist times, but when a genocide is happening, foreigners do not come to their aid.

“God turned on a light in my brain.”

This is how Immaculée describes the pivotal moment when she gets the idea to learn English, which will ultimately help her get her job at the United Nations. Learning English is an important sub-theme about communication and ties into the larger theme about ending cyclical violence. Being able to tell her story in English, and her position at the United Nations, allowsImmaculée to contribute to worldwide peacebuilding.

“Then Jesus spoke: ‘Mountains are moved with faith, Immaculée, but if faith were easy, all the mountains would be gone. Trust in me, and know that I will never leave you. Trust in me, and have no more fear. Trust in me, and I will save you. I shall put my cross upon this door, and they will not reach you. Trust in me, and you shall live.”

At her darkest hour, when Interwahame are searching the pastor’s home and calling her by name, Immaculée has an ecstatic religious experience. This narrative is about one woman’s faith and how it has guided her through the worst trauma. It is not uncommon for Immaculée, a religious woman, to speak directly with religious figures such as Jesus, as we see here. After this, she is able to believe that she and the other women will survive this experience unharmed.

“It was the most painful thing I’d ever read. I ran my fingertips across the tear-stained words and knew that I’d never be able to read this letter without crying.”

Immaculée is moved beyond measure to read the final words of her late brother Damascene in the letter he composed to her while trying to flee to Zaire. The letter, she notes elsewhere, is stained with Damascene’s tears, which makes her feel duly connected to Damascene when she reads it.

“I prayed that God would touch the captain’s heart with His forgiveness, and I prayed again for the killers to put down their machetes and beg for God’s mercy. The captain’s anger made me think that the cycle of hatred and mistrust in Rwanda would not easily be broken. There would certainly be even more bitterness after the killing stopped, bitterness that could easily erupt into more violence. Only God’s Divine forgiveness could stop that from happening now. I could see that whatever path God put me on, helping others to forgive would be a big part of my life’s work.”

Two of the book’s major themes are encapsulated in this quote: First, that religion and faith are transformative powers, with the ability to help those suffering overcome extreme trauma. Second, that “cycles of hatred” are repeated throughout history, and this book seeks to interrupt such cycles with its message.

“If these were the same RPF soldiers we’d been hoping would rescue us since the genocide began, then maybe it really was my time to die. My neighbors had turned on me, the killers were hunting me, the French had abandoned me, and now my Tutsi saviors were preparing to blow my brains out.”

In a rare moment of hopelessness, Immaculée feels defeated when she arrives at the RPF camp after having just been released from the bathroom. Rather than welcoming her, the Tutsi soldiers treat her with suspicion—and after what she has just been through, she thinks how much easier it would be if she were simply to end it all with death.

“Again, I saw God’s hand at work in what I’d thought was a chance encounter. The next day Dr. Abel dropped me off at the front gate of my old university.”

When Immaculée runs into one of her former professors at university, he agrees to give her a ride to her college campus in Butare. There are no coincidences in Immaculée’s world, only God’s handiwork—she sees this as further proof that God is guiding her and helping her through this difficult time. Without the degree, she would never have been accepted to work at the United Nations, so this ride to Butare changes the course of her life.

“I was living proof of the power of prayer and positive thinking, which really are almost the same thing. God is the source of all positive energy, and prayer is the best way to tap in to his power.”

The theme of the power of prayer is made explicit in Immaculée’s discussion of how she gets her job working at the United Nations. “Positive energy” is difficult to sustain in genocidal warfare, but Immaculée manages it due to her spirituality. The importance of Immaculée’s faith cannot be underestimated.

“As we drove away from my home, past the unmarked mounds of dirt that covered Mother and Damascene, I felt the bitter, dirty taste of hatred in my mouth.”

When Immaculée is confronted with the remains of her mother and her beloved brother Damascene, she easily slips into a feeling of anger and hatred. This demonstrates how easily cycles of violence are perpetuated throughout history. However, as she notes in the chapter to follow, forgiveness is the only way to end cyclical worldwide violence—that said, she is sympathetic to why people feel the hatred that perpetuates those cycles of war.

“My heart eased immediately, and I saw the tension release in Felicien’s shoulders before Semana pushed him out the door and into the courtyard.”

When Immaculée gives her forgiveness to her family’s killer (Felicien, a Hutu gang leader), the effect is immediate: Her heart eases, and Felicien’s “tension” is released. Though it is difficult for Immaculée to forgive Felicien, this scene shows how forgiveness a means to healing.