Introduction

This isn’t a book about ancient history, distant people, or a war that happened in a place you’ll never visit. It’s about real events, real lives, and real choices that happened not that long ago—and still matter today. You’re not reading a story with a neat beginning, middle, and end. This isn’t something that ended when the killing stopped. It’s something that continues to echo—in people’s memories, in their rebuilding, in the way we think about justice, prejudice, and what humans are capable of.

And this book? It isn’t here to shock you just for the sake of it. It isn’t about dropping horrifying facts and leaving you stunned and helpless. It’s not here to make you feel guilty or overwhelmed. But it will challenge you. Because the truth is, some things that happened during the Rwandan Genocide are hard to think about, let alone talk about. And that’s kind of the point.

This is a book that trusts you. It trusts that you can handle the truth even when it's complicated, uncomfortable, or painful. It trusts that you're ready to learn about how hate can grow—slowly, quietly—until it explodes into something unthinkable. And it trusts that you care enough to pay attention, because silence and ignorance are part of how genocide happens in the first place.

You’ll see a lot of terms in this book: “genocide,” “propaganda,” “perpetrators,” “survivors.” These are just words, but the people behind them were complex. The lines between good and evil aren’t always sharp. Some of the killers were teenagers. Some of the people who saved others were poor farmers, schoolteachers, or even former enemies. That doesn’t excuse anything—but it does force us to look closer and think harder.

This book isn’t going to wrap everything up in a perfect little lesson. It’s not going to say, “Never again,” and pretend that solves anything. The truth is, “never again” has been said before. After the Holocaust. After Cambodia. After Bosnia. And then it happened again in Rwanda. Saying the words isn’t enough. Understanding how it happened, and why people didn’t stop it, is where real change starts.

You might find yourself wondering how anyone could go along with something so horrific. Why didn’t people stop it? Why did neighbors turn against each other? Why didn’t more people fight back? Those are the right questions to ask. But don’t expect easy answers. People aren’t simple. Fear, anger, and pressure can twist people’s choices in ways that are hard to understand from a safe distance. What seems clear now wasn’t always clear then. And part of what this book is trying to do is help you step into that gray area—not to excuse it, but to understand it.

You also won’t find every detail in this book. That’s not because the stories aren’t worth telling. It’s because there are too many, and some of them are too graphic for this kind of book. Not because you can’t handle it, but because even the truth has to be told with care. That doesn’t mean we skip the hard parts. It means we tell them in a way that honors the people who lived through them. This isn’t about horror for the sake of horror. It’s about remembering with purpose.

There are moments when this book might make you angry. Or disgusted. Or heartbroken. Let that happen. Those emotions matter. They’re not a sign that something’s wrong—they’re a sign that you’re paying attention. And when you're reading about something as awful as genocide, the goal isn't to be emotionally neutral. It's to stay awake to what it means. The minute we start reading about mass murder without feeling anything, we’ve lost something important.

At the same time, this book isn’t about despair. It’s not a story of hopelessness.

This book isn’t is a script. You’re not being told what to think, how to feel, or what side to take. You’re being asked to pay attention, think critically, ask questions, and maybe talk to someone else about what you read. You’re being invited to explore a piece of history that still affects the world—whether we realize it or not.

A lot of adults don’t know this history very well, or they’ve only heard vague headlines or short documentaries. That’s not your fault, and it’s not theirs either, really. Genocide is something people tend to avoid. It makes us uncomfortable. It forces us to ask hard questions about what humans are capable of. But avoiding it only makes it more likely to happen again.

You’re going to read things that are brutal and confusing. You might even wonder what reading about mass killing is supposed to do for you. Here's the answer: it helps you recognize what leads up to it. It helps you see the danger signs in the real world—in the way people talk about each other, in the way hate spreads, in the way some lives get treated as worth less than others.

It’s not just about Rwanda. It’s about all of us. How we treat each other. What we tolerate. What we notice—or ignore. It’s about how easy it is for “us” and “them” to turn into something deadly. And it’s about why that can’t be something we just shrug off and say, “That’s history.”