Nearly 1,000 Assets from Genocide Archive of Rwanda Incorporated into IWitness

Students using IWitness can now explore nearly 1,000 historical documents, photographs, publications and additional testimonies to contextualize their learning about the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, courtesy of the Genocide Archive of Rwanda.

Established by the Aegis Trust in association with Rwanda’s National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide (CNLG), the Genocide Archive of Rwanda (GAR) will, long-term, become the unified repository where all information relating to the genocide can be found. Its physical archive will preserve original audiovisual, documentary and photographic materials in a secure, controlled environment managed to international standards. Its research programs will continue to trace materials from the genocide period, to map and gather information at sites of the genocide, and to record fresh survivor testimony. And its digital archive, created in collaboration with the University of Texas Libraries, will make all of this material fully accessible to researchers through a cross-referenced system that allows key word searches, first on site and ultimately online.

Within IWitness, students will find nearly 1,000 assets from GAR:  770 photographs, 73 ID cards, 96 videos (including survivor and perpetrator testimonies), 30 archival documents including correspondence, speeches and administrative documents, and 144 books and publications including Kangura, a Kinyarwanda- and French-language magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the buildup to the Rwandan Genocide.

IWitness provides access to nearly 1,300 full life histories, testimonies of survivors and other witnesses to the Holocaust and Rwandan Genocide for guided exploration. Students can watch testimonies and use them in individual or group multimedia projects; teachers can assign activities as classwork or homework, and can even custom-build their own lessons and activities. The testimonies are searchable by more than 9,000 keywords, enabling students to pinpoint exact moments of interest within each testimony, which averages two hours in length.