This woman is 89 years old, she has no education, she lives in a clay hut in a poor village in the center of Africa, and in addition she has a bad reputation - she is a witch. How did it happen that her name became world famous, and a tree was planted in her honor in the Garden of the Righteous in Padua, Italy?
Zula Karuhimbi saved 150 people during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Then in just three months, with the non-intervention of the UN and Western countries, militants of the Hutu people killed about 1 million people from the Tutsi people and their supporters. The genocide was preceded by a massive propaganda "pumping" with the help of radio, newspapers and leaflets. She prompted hundreds of thousands of Hutus - from peasants, workers and housewives to lawyers, teachers and priests - to pick up machetes and machine guns and go and kill their former neighbors and friends.
After the massacre, many murderers managed to evade responsibility - they simply returned to their past activities, as if nothing had happened. After all, the witnesses who could denounce them simply did not remain alive …
When the massacre began, Zula Karuhimbi hid many people: more than 100 Tutsis, about 50 Hutus and three whites. With rare exceptions, she didn't even know their names. Some people spent whole days crammed into a cramped hot cellar, covered with dry leaves and baskets, others hid in the house under the bed or in the attic, and still others took refuge on the branches of a plum tree near the house.
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The notoriety of the witch helped Zula Karuhimbi to drive the "Interahamwe" (Hutu organization) militants away from her home. She smeared her hands with poisonous herbs and, when the militants came, touched them, causing them to develop sores on their skin. “They didn’t understand what was the matter and thought I had cursed them,” she says. - Then I went into the house and thundered there with everything that came to hand, and told the militants that it was the spirits who were angry. When I was accused of hiding Tutsi, I replied: “I’m a witch, everyone is afraid of me, no one comes to me”.
Once they tried to set fire to her house, another time they fired on. But each time she managed to intimidate the militants so that the wrath of the spirits would fall on their families, and they retreated.
In 2006, Zulu Karuhimbi was awarded a medal for his participation in the fight against genocide. It was presented by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who, paradoxically, Zula also rescued during a previous outbreak of violence in 1957, when he was only two years old. His family lived in a nearby village. “When the attacks on the Tutsis began, I took off my necklaces, gave it to my mother and ordered to weave the necklaces into the child's hair, and tell everyone that it was a girl. Then only boys were killed, and that's how he survived, she says. Paul Kagame later became commander of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, whose army put an end to the genocide.
And Zula Karuhimbi gained worldwide fame when she was invited to the Italian Padua. There she planted her olive tree in the Garden of the Righteous, where a stele was opened in her honor. But she is illiterate, so now she can't even remember the name of the country she visited.
Previously, Zula lived off the fact that she sold vegetables from her garden at the local market. But now there is no strength for this anymore, and she obtains means for food in the same way as her ancestors, hereditary healers. Zula herself denies that she is a witch, and calls herself a healer. She says she knows how to brew potions that will cure headaches, correct physical imperfections, or help find work. Grasses are drying in the sun everywhere in front of her house.
However, fewer and fewer buyers come to it. This is partly due to the spread of education - now people trust doctors more than village witches. But there is a worse reason: as in all of Africa, witch hunts are becoming more widespread in Rwanda. An important role in this is played by the preachers of the Christian churches, who call to expel or kill witches and sorceresses. This is a big problem for all third world countries. Recently, real or imaginary witches are being killed more and more often, and of course, mainly women become victims (if there is time, then I will write a separate note about this).
And from the government, except for a medal, Zula Karuhimbi received nothing as a reward. She still lives in an adobe house with no electricity and bullet marks on the walls. An orphan lives with her, whom she recently adopted. Her own son died during the genocide, and her daughter was poisoned. “People laugh at me: they say, I hid strangers, but did not save their children,” she says. - I answer: "Only God knows what and why should happen."
That is, in fact, the whole story about "Schindler's Witch".