Until he retired from the Soviet Red Army in 1967, Leonid Rozenberg carried the banner at the head of the semi-annual military parade in the city of Lugansk, in what is now Ukraine, with hundreds of fellow soldiers marching behind him and thousands of spectators cheering him on.

Although highly decorated – his chest was covered in medals – the honor of leading the parade was tainted for Leonid. During his 26 years in the Soviet military Leonid was never promoted beyond the rank of lieutenant colonel. The reason? He was a Jew.

Today, October 1st, marks the day in 1990 that Rwandan Patriotic Front troops crossed into Rwanda from neighboring Uganda and the beginning of a sequence of events that culminated in the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi that claimed as many as one million lives over the course of approximately 100 days.