Why The Survivors In Jean Hartzfeld's Life Laid Bare

Jean Hartzfeld titled his book Life Laid Bare with the subtitle “The Survivors In Rwanda Speaks”. That book changed my life.Reading the difference stories of survivors made me wake up and smell the coffee. These young adult who survive to tell there story are remarkable. The story that had the highest impact on me, is the story of Jeannette Ayinkamiye. She is one strong woman. And my idol. Reading the story of her mother made me think of mine. The woman who made me the person I am today, I just cannot imagine my life without her. Reading about Jeannette’s struggle brought tears to my eyes. Just like Jeannette my mother is my rock. To read about how strong she had to be to witness her mother suffering for three days at the age of seventeen while she

At the age of seventeen the last thing on my mind as a young adult wasn’t to flee into marshes. I was living my life, with a roof over my head and three hot meal on the table every single day. I just cannot picture how I would survive in Jeanette’s shoe. I remember one question that was asked of me when I was seventeen in high school, it was “How does it feel to be in your shoes?”. A simple question, with two hours of answer. Reading the survivors story I tried to picture myself in their shoes. And thats a pair of shoe no one should ever experience. The Rwandan did experience that and I hope the world would learn from this genocide. During the course I was reading different definition of genocide. I had to understand the root of the word. The Holocaust Encyclopedia states that “The term "genocide" did not exist before 1944. The origin of the word come from a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin. Raphael Lemkin “ formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, derived from the Latin word for killing. The word “genocide” was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term”. The word was created by someone who experience