Inside The Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story ... and Why It Matters Today-Edouard Kayihura and Kerry Zukus

Inside The Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story ... and Why It Matters Today Edouard Kayihura and Kerry Zukus BenBella Books, Apr 1 2014, $24.95 www.benbellabooks.com ISBN: 9781937856748 Over a period of about 100 days in 1994, the Hutu genocidaires slaughtered one million Tutsi and left many other Rwandans injured and displaced until Paul Kagame led an army from exile in Uganda to end this Holocaust. In 2004, the movie Hotel Rwanda was released to critical acclaim and a fixture since in school curriculum, describing the Hotel Milles Collines as a safe haven and its manager Paul Rusesabagina as a hero. In that same year, Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, who had been UN peacekeeping mission commander during the atrocities, wrote his harrowing memoir Shake Hands with the Devil. Now Edouard Kayihura provides readers with a grim insider look at what truly happened to those 1200 plus refugees like the author living in the Hotel Rwanda during the horror. Adding to Mr. Kayihura’s first-hand account are disturbing comments from other occupants telling what occurred to them and their family outside and within the hotel. Inside The Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story ... and Why It Matters Today aligns closely to General Dallaire’s haunting account rather than the film. Furthermore, Mr. Kayihura (and other survivors) shockingly makes a strong case that Mr. Rusesabagina was not the African Schindler-like savior risking his life to protect others, but as a profiteer in cahoots with those committing the genocide. Not an easy read as this insightful memoir is much grimmer than the haunting Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, but important at a time when Holocaust deniers rewrite history as if “Never Again” never happened in Nazi Europe, Cambodia, Rwanda and elsewhere. Harriet Klausner