Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust

I read Left to Tell, by immaculee ilibagiza. This book is about a young Immaculee, still in college and her struggles throughout the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi tribe. This story includes her life in Rwanda before the genocide, her life during the mass murdering, and her life after the time. This story is very moving and inspiring, after throughout the hard times that Immaculee witnessed, she was able to find hope through her religion. The book is autobiography, written by Immaculee ilibagiza. 

The book starts off as her as a young child with her parents and siblings. This includes the poverty that she suffers and that she has seen. This also shows the prejudice that she went through with being a Tutsi and being in a Hutu-controlled government. When she was in college, she was woken up by an emergency broadcast about the threat that the Hutu rebel groups were attacking her tribe, the Tutsi, and the third tribe in Rwanda, the Twa. Immaculee soon finds out that her family, all six siblings and her mother and father, have been killed. She begins hiding, knowing she will be found soon. She soon finds herself running from three Hutu soldiers in the night, when she bangs on the door of a nearby house. Luckily, a man opens and lets her in. When she recovers her breath from her long chase, she begins to talk to the old man. She finds out that the man is a Hutu, and she begins to fear that he will turn her in. She soon finds out that the man in a Catholic Priest. This relieves her, as she is a very faithful person. She stays in his house without leaving for a week before the priest hears a knock on his door. He opens the door, to see an entire army of Hutu soldiers outside. He begs that they do not check his house today and say they can come back tomorrow. They agree since he is a priest. Overnight, a group of women that are Tutsi come face to face with the same situation that Immaculee faced, and end up in the priest’s house. The next day when the Hutu soldiers come, he hides all six girls in his small bathroom and puts a wardrobe over the door to hide it. The soldiers search the house, not seeing the bathroom door. Three months pass until the women hear the news that the genocide is over. For three long months, six young girls are in a small room, being fed but not being let out for their own safety. While stuck in the room, Immaculee writes that one night in her sleep, she had a vision of Jesus Christ, and he told her that everything would be okay.

This story was very moving. I couldn’t believe the hard times that Immaculee had gone through. I enjoyed the book very much and the story was sad, inspiring, and interesting. If you’re ever having a dark time, reading this will show you how lucky you are. I really recommend this book.

Book Review by Jordan S.