Bridges

A Rwandan genocide survivor documents her journey as she seeks out the wisdom and guidance from a fading generation of Holocaust survivors.

Today Eugenie Mukeshimana travels the Eastern United States to engage the voices of a dwindling population of Holocaust survivors — and to open her ears to the elusive knowledge and remarkable revelation of lives long lived beyond the unthinkable. Seventeen years ago in Rwanda, with her husband lost and five months pregnant, she spent a month hiding under the bed of an disinclined protector. Escaping death with luck and a belief in possibility,Eugenie landed in New Jersey with her infant daughter to find a Rwandan diaspora in shock and willful denial. Coming from a culture largely defined by its oral traditions, she was confounded by this profound inability to proactively engage the tragedies of a not so distant past. Unable to make sense of the senseless, plagued by her own changing memory, and burdened with the question of how to share her story with a maturing daughter, Eugenie turned to Holocaust survivors to begin a conversation of understanding, responsibility and life to be spoken across tables, oceans, cultures and generations.