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How Is Immaculee Alike

Decent Essays

While the words save and spare are similar, their meaning is actually quite different. In the book, Left to Tell, this distinction is particularly pertinent to Immaculee Ilibagiza. In the Rwandan Genocide Immaculee lost everything she had, except one brother. Though the two siblings endured one of the worst genocides in history Immaculee was blessed to have survived to tell the story of Aimable who was saved and Immaculee who was spared. Incredibly, at the conclusion of the book, Left to Tell, Immaculee forgave the man who caused her so much pain. Through Immaculee’s eyes, to be saved is to have an event like the Rwandan Genocide occur, but not have to experience the travesty in person. Aimable, the brother of Immaculee, was saved by God …show more content…

Though Immaculee was spared from death, she certainly encountered many life-threatening situations including, but not limited to witnessing crimes of cruelty and murder. Immaculee’s encounters started with all of the Tutsi villagers coming to her house in despair and ended with evading land mines on her way to the UN in Kigali. While home from University, for Easter Break, the Rwandan president was killed. The next day, Immaculee and her family were at home listening to the radio, when they started to hear about the Interahamwe, a group of Hutu killers that took drugs, drank, and killed as many innocent Tutsis as they could. After word got out that the Interahamwe was killing Tutsis, thousands of Tutsi neighbors showed up seeking advice from Immaculee’s father, a well-respected man. The killings escalated, killers closed in on Immaculee’s house and her Dad asked her to flee to Pastor Murinzi’s, a trusted Hutu neighbor’s, house. There, Pastor Murinzi hid Immaculee and six other Tutsi women in a hidden bathroom in his bedroom. For months, the house was searched thoroughly by Interahamwe looking for hidden Tutsis. While Immaculee was hidden all of her family were brutally murdered, except for her older brother in Senegal. Pastor Murinzi found a French camp nearby that would provide the girls a safe shelter. The girls, with the help of Pastor Murinzi and some other Hutu men, walked to the French camp safely, marking the point at which

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