My name is Consolee Nishimwe, I’m a genocide survivor. During the genocide I was 14 years old, which is almost the same age as Elie Wiesel was during the Holocaust…I lost my father and my three brothers and many of my family members…During the genocide, rape is used as a weapon, so I was one of the women and girls who were subject to rape…Right after the genocide it was very hard for me to talk about my experience, but reading Night by Elie Wiesel gave me the courage to speak up…What I got from Night was…we can’t afford to be quiet, and we have to be a voice for others…”
A motivational speaker and author of Tested to the Limit: A Genocide Survivor’s Story of Pain, Resilience and Hope, Nishimwe was among the more than 65 speakers that gathered at the Jewish Heritage Museum on Sunday to read passages from Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night in honor of Holocaust Remembrance day.