REMEMBERING THE PAST

April 2004
		Two people who have survived periods of horrific genocide have teamed up to tell people about their experiences in the Holocaust and Rwanda's civil war, with the hope of preventing such acts from happening again. David Gewirtzman and Jacqueline Murekatete answer your questions.

Forum Introduction What is it within a society that causes genocide and what can one do? What locations and situations in the world currently hold the potential for genocide? What is it within you that keeps you from being bitter and what would you hope to instill in people to carry with them in their daily lives? Are you ever criticized by other Jews for drawing the connection between the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, as well as similar atrocities in the history of humanity? When you were in Poland, were you were able to contact the family who hid you and your family? Mr. Gewirtzman, it was about 50 years before you went back to Poland. Why so long? And Ms. Murekatete, how will you decide when to go back to Rwanda? Is there a book written about Rwanda, or are there materials to illustrate the similarities between the Rwanda experience and the Holocaust? How do you feel about the United States government's inaction in Rwanda? Have you shared your story with anyone in the U.S. government? What factors caused one tribe to rise up against another in Rwanda?	When she was 9 years old, Jacqueline Murekatete went to school in her grandmother's village, enabling her to escape the start of the Rwandan genocide in 1994. After hiding with her grandmother in various places during the massacre, Murekatete went home to learn that her family had been killed. Now a freshman at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Murekatete saw David Gewirtzman speak about surviving the Holocaust when she was in the tenth grade. She wept at the similarity of their experiences and now joins him in his appearances. When Gewirtzman was young, he was one of just 16 Jews out of 8,000 in a small Polish town to survive the German occupation. The Nazi forces executed the others as part of the systematic execution of millions of Jews throughout World War II. On the surface, Murekatete and Gewirtzman make an unlikely pair. "People see us together and we couldn't seem more different," says Gewirtzman. "She's black, I'm white, she's African, I'm European, she's Christian, I'm Jewish, she's 19, I'm 75, she's female, I'm male. But we are bound by our experiences." The two survivors answer your questions.