Nkeshimana, Germain Herman

Nkeshimana, Germain Herman

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Interviewee Age

Born on the 9th November 1959

Interviewee Gender

Male

Interviewee Occupation

State inspector

Interviewee Level of Education in 1972

Was in sixth grade in 1972 and went on to university later on

Geographical Location(s) during the genocide

Taba Village, the commune was Gitandu, Songa zone, the province Bururi

Current Geographical Location

Taba Village, the commune is Songa, the province Bururi

Interview Date

3-10-2022

Interviewer Name

Florence Nitunga

Summary of Oral History

Germain Herman Nkeshimana was born in 1959 in Taba village, Songa commune, Bururi province. He started elementary school in 1966 at Rumeza until the seventh grade. He studied the eighth and ninth grade at Giheta, he continued his studies from the tenth grade to the fourteenth grade at Kibimba where he graduated in pedagogy. He taught there at Kibimba for two years.  He went to the University and there he studied in the faculty of psychology and Educational Sciences. After that, he taught at Pedagogic Lycée of Mweya in Gitega province. Apart from what he had studied when he was at his job he studied journalism and he got foundation certificate (.) journalism level1: Collection and information treatment, he studied Management of Public Finances, then he got diploma of a trainer of Public Finances Controllers. In 1972, when the tragedy came out, Germain Herman was studying in sixth and it was on 29th April when they heard on the radio that a crisis started in Burundi, that there were people who were called Mulele who killed others. And at that time, even schools stopped for a little moment and they saw that something changed. After school closed, children stayed home and fathers started to do night guards and their camp of guarding was there near Tagara school. They could see them lighting the fire the whole night in the aim of arresting Mulele people from Rumonge because they said that Mulele people attacked from Rumonge. After some days, their father said to them goodbye and they told them that they were going down to Rumonge; they said that there was an assembly in which they said that every adult boy and every man who had a spear or any other thing had to pick it so that they could go down to Rumonge at Mutambara to help support soldiers to fight against Mulele. Their fathers went; in families, there remained women and children. After a moment, their fathers came back from Rumonge. Herman remembers that when they arrived at Manyoni, there was an authority who held an assembly; they were still young children, and they went to stand by near the men who were listening the assembly; the authority said “Ladies and gentlemen, you know that the war started, but, now peace had implemented again in Rumonge, we won the enemy, but the enemy is between us”. Their fathers had already hiked from Rumonge. After the assembly, the first Hutu people were arrested at that time and they were brought to be imprisoned at Songa zone. After that, the following days, they used to say; “someone has been taken away, this has been taken away”. They saw trucks transporting people; after the Songa jail was full, there was a truck which had to come and take away all the people but they didn’t know where they transported them, they thought that they were bringing them to mass graves or elsewhere. Those trucks took those people a lot of days. People were crying when being taken away, lying in opposite ways and tied. Then, to know that they lost his father, when he arrived at Manyoni in a way from Rumeza primary school, he saw a hat down in the street and he saw that it seemed like his father’s hat, a hat that seemed it had been casted down in the shit it had been floated; then he became sorrowfully angry and fearful in his heart. Arriving at home, his mother told him that his father was taken away. When taking them away they used to beat them. The following day, her mother started to bring food to his father, because, when they were still there in the jail at Songa zone, they used to bring food to them. She brought to him food once, twice, third and after, she brought back the food. Her husband was no longer alive; after a long time, Nzeye told them he had seen his father dying there at Manyoni to the zone, that they bumped his head into a stone and they put him in the hole, then they knew that his father was in the Manyoni common grave. The JRR people were the ones to take away people one by one. There were people who used to come there and obliged them to give cows to authorities so as their father may be released (.) they gave about two cows to release him, but it didn’t work.  Apart from his father who was killed in 1972 tragedy, they also lost other relatives and neighbors: his paternal uncle: Dismas Kangurunguru, her maternal two uncles among them was Gabriel Kaburagiye who was a teacher at Nyamugari at Bururi.  All people who had died, they named them traitors, widows had been given a name of traitors’ women, orphans were called traitors’ children; that was traumatism and terrorism on the high level. Marc Nyungunganya who was Herman’s family member, he at that time was teaching in first primary school, he had been swindled by Tutsi teachers by telling him to go to get his salary in Bururi because it was at the end of April. When others went to get their salaries, they came back, but him; he didn’t come back. Other teachers like Gitengeri who was a primary school teacher, took him and he died, Sebatien Rizi, Pascal nicknamed Ruhigi and Jean Buhuragiza were lucky to flee in the priest’s homes, they were being pursued. They spent time there, but they looked for them from there because they came several times to the priest to ask for those people, and the priest settled them and they brought them to Bururi in jail with my Bishop Bududira standing by so that they may not kill them. The piece of advice Herman gives is from the Ecclesia teachings, “you see that a man is created by God, that means that no one has the right to kill him. Only God who knows his destiny. Even the national protocols prohibit killing each other; that’s why we have to respect God's commandments and the one of the country, to respect humankind's life, to respect man's dignity”.

Named Persons

Louis Bukuru: his father, he was the cows’ seller from Matana to Rumonge, that was his most job he had; Petronie Simbashizubwoba: his mother; Severienne Harerimana, Alphonse Nahimana, Therese Nisubire, Dorothee Nimpagaritse, Boniface Ninyibuka, Niyungeko Nicodem: his siblings, Ntanyerera: his grandfather, Marguerite Fatirisigaye: his grandmother, Mirambo and Mitakaro : his maternal grandparents, Dismas Kangunguru: his uncle killed, Gabriel Kaburagiye: his maternal uncle - a teacher at Nyamugari killed in 1972, Jean Condo: administrator.

Named Places

Giheta, Rumeza, Kibimba, Mweya, university: schools where Herman passed, Tagara, Jenda, Taba, Ifuku: villages, Songa ( Zone), Matana( Gitandu): communes, Bururi, Rumonge, Gitega, Bujumbura : provinces.

Length of Oral History

00:45:17

Language(s) of Oral History

Kirundi

Language(s) of Transcripts

Kirundi, English

Translator for Transcripts

Pasteur Niyomwungere

Field Folder Number

9

Rights

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Download Germain Herman Nkeshimana - Oral History Transcript and Translation (Kirundi and English) (295 KB)

Nkeshimana, Germain Herman

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