“Voices of the Past” is a full-year elective course for sophomores and upperclassman at Calhoun that English teacher Julie Rosslee leads in the fall and Goldberg in the spring. Through the lenses of literature, journalism, history, politics and sociology, students study gross human rights violations in the modern era, from the Holocaust to the Khmer Rouge’s killing fields, the Rwanda Genocide and those ongoing in North Korea and elsewhere today.

Goldberg said Habimana’s talk gave the students “an opportunity to hear a first-hand account of what takes place when humanity fails to help out when it’s needed. It allows them to see the real life impacts of decisions that are made — that history is not just a book, it’s real people’s lives.”

Recounting the horror

Habimana spoke to roughly 35 Calhoun students and six faculty members on March 28. A tall, thin man with a young face, Habimana wore slacks, a purple dress shirt and an ear-mounted microphone that projected his voice as he paced in front of the classroom. He spent most of his time detailing his early years, both before and during the genocide, and then he discussed his present-day reflections on these events and answered students’ questions. At times Habimana’s speech faltered — English is his fourth language –– and he joked with his audience or asked for their forgiveness when he struggled for a word, but he made clear at the lecture’s beginning that “in English and my native language, there are no words to describe what happened to us.”

He recalled the tension that marked the months preceding the genocide, as his family moved from one place to another, trying to outrun Hutu extremists. He wore all the clothes he owned, Habimana explained, in case he had to leave at a moment’s notice. Finally, Habimana said, he could take the heat no longer, and he removed most of the layers. That same afternoon, genocidaires arrived on his family’s street.