Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust Paperback – Illustrated, April 7, 2014

Amazing life story

Amazingly a story also of love of family and friends. Forgiveness of the most difficult kind imaginable. With love and a strong follower of Jesus Christ. I couldn’t put the book down. I have seen the beautiful country of Rwanda and loved the beautiful people of this country today. Incredible healing. We need to learn from people like Immaculee.

Immaculee Ilibagiza was the only daughter of upstanding, well-educated, charitable, civic-minded and devout Catholic parents living in the Kibuye countryside of Rwanda when an apocalyptic wave of ethnic "cleansing" was unleashed by simmering socio-political forces and government encouragement/complicity in 1994. Being members of the minority Tutsi tribe, Immaculee and her wonderful parents, brothers, neighbors and friends were the targets of the majority Hutu tribespeople who sought to wipe their countrymen out to the very last. Neighbor turned against neighbor, "friend" against friend and, in 100 days' time, 1,000,000 human beings were butchered without mercy. Men, women, children and infants were hacked to death or shot (but mostly hacked to death) and rivers of blood ran red as the bodies were piled into rotting towers of gore or thrown to dogs. Genocide was taking place as the streets and towns of Rwanda were patrolled by roving packs of savage citizens armed with machetes. In a last-ditch effort at survival, Immaculee was sent by her father to hide in a neighbor's house, where she was crammed into a 4ft. X 3ft. bathroom hidden behind a wardrobe for 91 days with six other terrified women. As mobs of killers searched the house sporadically and their voices chanted regularly in the neighborhood, Immaculee clung to her father's rosary and relied upon desperate prayer to get her through unspeakable horror, discomfort, anxiety and the realization that her entire family had been "exterminated."As a personal document from one of the relatively few who survived the Rwandan genocide, Immaculee's straightforward and uncomplicated account is both profound and direct. The agony of the living nightmare that afflicted her day after unending day would have reduced many human beings to madness and, unfortunately, that was indeed the fate suffered by many "lucky enough" to have survived this dark moment in human history. There is nothing in Immaculee's story that lacks verisimilitude, particularly given the copious journalistic documentation that came far, far too late regarding this blight upon the face of modern civilization. Immaculee's faith and frequent accounts of her intense prayer are intrinsic to this book, but even though I do not believe in quite the same kind of God as Immaculee (i.e. a deity that is actively "involved" while human murderers are hacking people to pieces, a busy God picking this one to "spare" by some sort of miracle-power over HERE, while not bothering to help the screaming children over THERE -- please, no wonder we are saddled with so many atheists when such a stupid deity is being "taught") I will not in any way mock Immaculee's desperate and extraordinary faith in the face of horrors that few of us would be lucky to endure visually, much less in the flesh. Immaculee does not preach or proselytize: she testifies to her specific experience of the whole unthinkable episode. In that sense, her book is undeniably a powerful lesson in the durability of the human spirit, the ability of the human person to overcome and even triumph against incomprehensible tragedy through forgiveness and, yes, if you wish, it is also a book that may demonstrate the real power of some kind of God -- namely a God who is an abiding source of love that does NOT interfere, allowing the sun to rise on the just and the unjust, but who remains ever-present and capable of transforming ruin into redemption for those who choose love ... come life or come death. It's a powerful book, a terrifying reminder of how dangerous we become when we dehumanize our neighbors, and it is a disgusting commentary on modern human neglect. Where was the "global community" for 100 days in 1994? Where were the cries of outrage from the great Catholic Church in Rome? Surely, someone there knew what was happening in an overwhelmingly Catholic nation of Africa. Where the heck was Oprah, for that matter? Or all of the other bleeding-heart Hollywood stars who can't wait to get photo-ops opening schools and sundry in Africa because it's fashionable in certain circles these days? The important and ambitious politicians -- where were they? Not bothering with Rwanda, that's for sure. A person does come away wondering how a million people could possibly have been left alone to be sliced apart in cold blood in 1994, with hardly a peep from the glorious powers of the world. Read it, absorb it, ask questions. Never forget. I dare anyone to call me cynical for asking such questions after reading the book himself or herself. But read it you should. Read it and weep.

I purchased this book from Amazon.com back in 2008. I had to re-read it again as I just read two of her other books as of late. Since my first reading of this book, I find literally hundreds of others have not only read it, but have written Reviews of it on Amazon.com.I doubt this Review will ever be read due to all those prior, but I must reach out to say that this woman has given us (Christians to non-religious sects) a lot to think about..in all of her books; yet this one is of her own strength in her belief system...as it strengthened her as well as tided her over...thus giving her the skills to survive while hiding only inches away from a machete custom made for her, so to speak. (That is not a true statement but a true admission of those Hutu's looking for her in the Tutsi holocaust in Rwanda.)Because she was left to tell of the story of Rwanda, her childhood set precedent to this book and in the other books she penned, as to the type of person she was, from a well-to-do family known for their 'upscale value system', and NOT from material things. I know that situation but I don't know if I could have done as well as she did hiding from machetes ready to take Tutsi people apart limb by limb. Because this genocide took place and the Western countrys were not intervening is so damaging to those of us who would have wanted to help. What was our President and Congress thinking? Though in the early 1990's, not only this was happening, but so was Eastern European States coming unglued and dividing accordingly, well located far from Rwanda, Africa. There too a tragic story was unfolding for people so unjustly.This is a 'must read' because it is historical and it took place in our lifetime. It is well explained in this book. That is why many of us readersare damn-well angered we were not informed until the aftermath. Many of us learned of this genocide from the movie HOTEL RWANDA. And I think a lot of people wondered if it were a true story of one man in just a small county in Rwanda, or was his plight just a Hollywood movie. It was real and thankfully, Immaculee Ilibagiza made it through it all, with the urgency to let the world know what happened to her country by ways of her own.It's educational, historical, spiritual, an autobiography, political, uncanny, insane, and could have ended differently if we in the West would have intervened while it happened and not just after it happened. That part is a bit embarrassing as I live in one of these Western 'all for human rights' countries.But bless her soul, she continues to educate us about Rwanda, and is making money and bringing it back home to her native country to help them with their poverty. I hope she will continue to make strides with her foundation.I highly recommend this book, along with two others that she has written, as well as any other book her pen, paper and mind bring together for us to learn about. This was a great read but not for you if you do not care for the gruesome parts of what makes a massacre of a nation...a genocide. If that bothers you, please, try to work on that aspect so that you can read it.Peace to all those Rwandan Tutsis left, after the Holocaust, as well as thoseHutu's who did all they could...putting themselves at the blade of the machete for hiding the Tutsis they loved or felt sorry for. They kept a tribe in Rwanda alive and from extinction. And Blessings of Peace to you, Immaculee, for all of your writings. Your beloved family is very proud of you!

I remember reading in the papers about the horrible killings going on in Rwanda while they were happening, but I really didn't pay that much attention then. But upon reading this book, I found myself touched by Ilibagiza's account of living through the horrors of this Rwandan Holocaust.Of course, as an Atheist, I give no credence to her conviction that "God" left his celestial duties to personally guide her through the war and protect her at every turn, but if she needed that faith to give her strength and comfort, who am I to argue? Be that as it may, I admire her for her ability to in the end forgive the very people who had massacred most of her family -- along with a million other Tutsis. It takes a very big, loving heart to do something like that. In that respect, Immaculee Ilibagiza provides inspiration for others to follow suit. She is to be admired for that.