In 1994, Rwanda’s population of 7 million was composed of three ethnic groups: Hutu (approximately 85 percent), Tutsi (14 percent) and Twa (1 percent). Between April and July 1994, at least 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered when a Hutu extremist-led government launched a plan to murder the country’s entire Tutsi minority and any others who opposed the government’s policies.
Click here to learn more about the Rwandan Genocide from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Today marks 26 years since the start of that genocide. If we are serious about “never again”, we must dedicate ourselves to ending hatred in all of its forms. Education is the first step. To that end, our librarian, Ryan Woodward, has put together the following reading list.
REMEMBERING THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip J. Gourevitch ISBN-13: 978-0312243357
Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld ISBN-13: 978-1590512739
Left To Tell: Discovering God Admist the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza ISBN-13: 978-1401944322
Shake Hands With The Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda by Roméo Dallaire ISBN-13: 978-0786715107
Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing by James E. Waller ISBN-13: 978-0195314564
Defining the Horrific: Readings on the Holocaust and Genocide in the 20th Century by William Hewitt ISBN-13: 978-0131100848
The Psychology of Good and Evil: Why Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others by Ervin Staub ISBN-13: 978-0521528801
Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld ISBN-13: 978-0374280826
The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist’s Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo by Clea Koff ISBN-13: 978-1400060641
Media and Mass Atrocity: The Rwanda Genocide and Beyond by Allan Thompson ISBN-13: 978-1928096726
Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh 