Finding GOD in hell
How Immaculée Ilibagiza’s faith helped her survive the Rwandan holocaust

By Nancy Schertzing
Photography by Jim Luning

Immaculée Ilibagiza endured unimaginable horrors as a Tutsi in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The ethnic hatred and butchery claimed most of her beloved family and profoundly changed the direction of her young life.

For 91 days, she hid from the slaughter with seven other Tutsi women in the local pastor’s bathroom – a space so small they survived only by sitting in complete silence on each others’ laps. Outside their window, Hutu neighbors laughed as they followed their government’s direction to hunt Tutsis with machetes and other government-issued weapons.

In her book, Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, Immaculée describes the extraordinary brutality and the voices that assailed her ears and mind during her ordeal. She tells of voices that imparted a truth so profound it empowered her to forgive the butchers and dedicate her life to sharing that message with the world.

“I could hear the killers on the other side of the wall, at least 300 or 400 of them shouting and jeering. They sounded drunk and their chanting was more vicious than usual, ‘Kill the Tutsis big and small … kill them one and kill them all. Kill them!’

“I entreated, ‘God, make them go away … save us from …’

‘Don’t call on God, Immaculée,’ [a] voice broke in, ‘He knows you’re a liar every time you pray to him and tell him you love him. How can you love God, but hate so many of his creations?’ Beneath the raucous singing, the dark voice taunted me, ‘It’s no use. Don’t call on God. God doesn’t save liars.’

“I began to pray for the killers, but then stopped. I desperately wanted God’s protection, but I believed in my heart they deserved to die. I couldn’t pretend they hadn’t slaughtered and raped thousands of people – I couldn’t ignore the awful, evil things they had done to so many innocent souls. I asked God, ‘Let me pray for their victims instead. Let me pray for justice. God, I will ask you to punish those wicked men, but I cannot forgive them – I just can’t.’

“Finally I heard the killers leaving, walking away down the road, their singing fading in the distance.

The bones of victims of the Rwandan genocide wait to be sorted and placed in display cases at a planned museum set to open in the capital, Kigali, in February 2002.

 

I“I heard his answer as clearly as if we’d been sitting in the same room chatting: ‘You are all my children, and the baby is with me now.’

“It was such a simple sentence, but it was the answer to the prayers I’d been lost in for days. I held my father’s rosary and asked God to help me [as I meditated on Jesus’ words on the cross.] Again I heard his voice: ‘Forgive them; they know not what they do.’

“I took a crucial step toward forgiving my killers that day. My anger was draining from me. I’d opened my heart to God and he’d touched it with his infinite love. For the first time, I pitied the killers. I asked God to forgive their sins and turn their souls toward his beautiful light.

“That night I prayed with a clear conscience and a clean heart. For the first time since I entered the bathroom, I slept in peace.”

Growing up in a devout Catholic family, Immaculée followed all the Catholic traditions – from attending Sunday Mass to fasting and praying before the crucifix. But she did these largely because her parents made her. As the genocide raged, Immaculée fully embraced her faith, retreating inward to pray and meditate as she and her fellow refugees hid in the bathroom, living on scraps from the pastor’s table and waiting for the insanity to end.

While her body was shriveling from lack of food and exercise, Immaculée’s faith sustained her and nourished her soul. Through meditation, praying the rosary and contemplative prayer, she writes, “I gave myself completely over to God. When I wasn’t praying I felt I was no longer living in his light and the world of the bathroom was too bleak to endure.”

The prayers and meditation also kept the dark voice Immaculée calls the devil at bay. Over a decade later, a thriving Immaculée considers the voice that menaced her during her ordeal. She explains, “I don’t remember hearing the devil before the genocide. If I did, I didn’t pay attention, or thought it was just my mind until I heard his intense suggestions. Now I am aware so much of his voice always calling for the wrong thing, contrary to God’s will. Unfortunately, sometimes we listen to him.

“I think the killers heard the same voices – even the voice of God, but they chose to listen to the government and the devil. I was only lucky to listen to God’s voice because I was in a situation where I needed him so badly. Most often, we tell ourselves we need him only when we are in trouble. But the Hutus were the free tribe, out of trouble at that time. They didn’t need God much and fell for the false promising and lying of the devil’s voice. I have heard killers who say that they think they were possessed, who regret bitterly what they did. I think they know they listened to the wrong voices.

“God’s voice was always loving, soft and tolerant like a father or mother. God’s voice was calling me to make good decisions in the present moment, leading me into the future and helping me to know the past is forgiven.”

In 2006, Hay House published Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust, Immaculée’s memoir of her ordeal. She ends her account of the genocide and aftermath by describing the dramatic moment when she lived God’s message most poignantly by seeking out her family’s killer at the prison near her hometown.

“I watched as a disheveled, limping old man crossed the prison yard. I jumped as they approached, recognizing the man instantly as Felicien, a successful Hutu businessman whose children I’d played with in primary school. He’d been tall, handsome and had impeccable manners. I shivered, remembering it had been his voice I’d heard calling out my name when the killers searched for me at the pastor’s house. Felicien had hunted me.

“Pushed into the office, Felicien stumbled onto his knees. When he looked up from the floor and saw that I was the one waiting for him, the color drained from his face. His dirty clothes hung from his emaciated frame in tatters. His skin was sallow, bruised and broken, and his eyes were filmed and crusted. His bare feet were covered in open, running sores.

“I wept at the sight of his suffering.

“[The jailer] yelled at Felicien, ‘He looted your parents’ home and robbed your family’s plantation, Immaculée. After he killed your mother and brother, he kept looking for you – he wanted you dead so he could take over your property. Didn’t you, pig? What do you have to say to her? What do you have to say to Immaculée?’

“Felicien was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hand lightly and said what I had come to say. ‘I forgive you.’

“My heart eased immediately, and I saw the tension release in Felicien’s shoulders before his jailer pushed him out the door and into the courtyard. Two soldiers yanked Felicien up by his armpits and dragged him back toward his cell.”

Looking back on that moment, Immaculée explains. “When I met Felicien, I wanted him to know what was in my heart at that moment. I felt the forgiveness and wanted to give it to him, though I was embarrassed that by forgiving this killer his jailer may have thought I was crazy or that I didn’t really love my family. Still, I wanted to free his heart from the excuse that I hated him, so he could think of how to grow from there. I wanted him to be better, to regret what he had done and to realize God’s love for everyone.

“I hope that my experience can help others to forgive and to experience the peace that comes from that. I want them to always have hope and to know God is close to each heart.

“No matter what happens in our lives we can be happy and trusting if we practice true, holy love in each second. Forgiveness, not only in our hearts but in the world, is our only chance. And it is possible if we listen to God’s voice in our lives.”