WINFREY: Belise Rutagengwa and Clemantine Wamariya
are genocide survivors,
each bearing witness to 100 days of bloody terror
in 1994 when 800,000 people
were murdered in Rwanda.
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I saw people getting slaughtered.
I saw women who were pregnant getting macheted
and their babies thrown out onto the trees.
WINFREY: Belise was five years old at the time.
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I didn't understand why
people were being killed and in
front of my face, like little children being cut,
and there was just--I will never get those images out of me.
WINFREY: Her parents, grandparents and most of
her extended family were killed.
Horrific memories will always haunt Clemantine,
who was just six years old when she hid in a banana tree,
listening to the screams as her grandparents'
house was burned to the ground.
Ms. WAMARIYA: We hid in there probably 20 minutes and
everybody died when my grandparents house, all them,
all of them--all of them were killed.
WINFREY: She and her 16-year-old sister
Claire were left to fend for themselves.
Ms. WAMARIYA: And I just kept hiding, kept hiding.
We didn't even know where we were going.
WINFREY: They hid for 100 terrifying days,
then spent six years in refugee camps across Africa,
always looking for their parents.
Ms. WAMARIYA: I keep searching to see if I will
see someone that looks like me.
WINFREY: Clemantine and Belise are now both living in America.
Belise came here in 1999, Clemantine a year later.
Neither spoke a word of English when they arrived.
Today, they are among the best students in their schools.
Two more voices in a rising chorus of never again.
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I need to speak out.
People need to know the truth.
I join with Elie Wiesel in praying that his book will
inspire us to change the world, one night at a time.
WINFREY: Bravo to both of you. So--thanks.
Belise--Belise goes to boarding school just out of
Chicago and lives with her aunt in Indiana.
Belise, you call your aunt Mom.
And you say even though you lost most of your family,
you still feel like one of the lucky ones. Why?
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I think that we shouldn't feel sad about what happened.
I think that I should be thankful for
what I have now because I know that there are so many
orphans out there who have nobody.
They will never experience what I've experienced in America.
And so I feel that I was one of the lucky ones.
WINFREY: And I remember in your essay,
you compared your father to Elie Wiesel's father.
Why so?
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: My father, just like Professor Wiesel, was very optimistic.
He didn't believe that his friends, his neighbors,
his--he believed in his country.
He didn't believe...
WINFREY: Because you all were warned. Were you not warned?
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: We were warned, but you couldn't
believe that your neighbors and your friends would be killing
you the next day, would be turning you in to the police,
the militia, or anything.
WINFREY: Mm-hmm.
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I've been watching what's been going on in Sudan,
and I think that I was saved for a reason.
I think that God saved me because
I was left to tell what happened for those
who are silent now who have no voice.
And I think that, as Professor Wiesel said,
it would be inhuman of us to let the world leaders said--
say that never again will this happen when we know today in Sudan,
people are getting slaughtered daily,
and we're doing nothing about it.
WINFREY: And you also said--you talked about the stars,
the stars they had to wear and compared it to?
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I compared the stars of--the yellow stars of
the Holocaust to the mark.
We had identity cards which stated if you
were Hutu or Tutsi.
And it was a mark of death if you were Tutsi because
you didn't know what to expect,
you didn't know what was coming.
WINFREY: Well, you knew you were going to be killed.
Yeah, yeah. And many times, people fled to the churches
and were killed in the churches.
Ms. RUTAGENGWA: I have recently found out that more people died
in the churches than anywhere else in the country.
And to me, as a Catholic, as a devout Catholic,
that's something I can never understand how--I--
it's hard for me to go back to a place to pray where so much blood was shed.
WINFREY: Because so many priests turned in the people.
So Clemantine, before you left Africa, did you ever find your parents?
Ms. WAMARIYA: No, actually.
I just--we just found out in 2001, since 1994,
that our parents were alive, which was a miracle,
which was we searched, we try Red Cross,
we try, you know, UNICEF, we tried everywhere, my sister and I,
we moved everywhere, everyday, walking around,
searching and searching and searching.
WINFREY: So when was the last time you saw them?
Ms. WAMARIYA: Well, it was 1994, when I had no idea what was going on.
So until 2001, when we met a person who told us that
they were alive, and we couldn't believe it that they had survived.
WINFREY: That they had survived.
Ms. WAMARIYA: Yes.
WINFREY: Now, is it true that you have a brother and sister?
Ms. WAMARIYA: Yes. I have two new siblings that I haven't met
yet because it's been 12 years since we
have seen each other.
So I have two new siblings that I really don't know.
Even if I met them, maybe I won't know them.
WINFREY: Well, I have a letter from your parents.
I have a letter from your parents. Clemantine and Claire,
come up on here. Claire is Clemantine's sister.
Hi. Nice to see you, Claire.
This is from your family in Rwanda.
Your father and your mother and your sisters and your brother.
And I wanted you to read it. OK?
But you don't have to read it right now in front of all these people.
You don't have to read it right now in front of all
these people because your family is here.
We have flown your family here.
[APPLAUSE]
That's good. Isn't that good? Thank you.
Let me say hello. I know.