Twenty Tutsi survivors of the Rwandan genocide will participate in a weeklong (October 31 - November 7, 2005) seminar at Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies. The seminar is being held in partnership with Nyamirambo, a Tutsi NGO based in Belgium and Rwanda, and the French Memorial of the Shoah. The seminar will be held in French and Hebrew.

Participants in the seminar are people involved in one way or another with memorializing the Rwandan genocide, and in rebuilding Rwandan society. While engaged in building their own memorials to the genocide, Yolande Mukagasana, director of Nyamirambo, initiated the idea of coming to Yad Vashem to see how the Shoah is memorialized here and how the Jewish people are dealing with memorializing the Shoah, using it as a reference point for their own remembrance.

Highlights of the seminar include:

• The Genocide in Rwanda - Have we learned anything from the Holocaust? -- Wednesday, November 2 at 15:00. Including testimony from a Tutsi survivor, discussion, and a film clip on the Rwandan genocide. With the participation of Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Prof. Yehuda Bauer, Academic Advisor to Yad Vashem, Yolande Mukagasana, Prof. Benjamin Neuberger and Prof. Yair Oron of the Open University. This session will take place in French and Hebrew with simultaneous English translation.
• Meeting between Holocaust survivors and Tutsi survivors - Thursday, November 3 at 15:30. In Hebrew and French.
• From the Experience of Catastrophe to the Consciousness of Catastrophe - Sunday, November 6, at 14:00. A discussion between educators at the International School for Holocaust Studies and Tutsi survivors. In Hebrew and French.

The Seminar is open to the press in coordination with the Media Relations Department only: 02 6443410.