Review

Publishers Weekly

Reviewed April 2006
Smoothly translated, this hard-hitting book chronicles the experiences of Jansen's adopted daughter, Jeanne d'Arc Umubyeyi, the sole member of her Tutsi family to survive the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Jansen first depicts Jeanne's happy, secure life with her educator parents, older brother and younger sister. Yet the early chapters hint at trouble ahead, as the eight-year-old overhears her mother and a friend discussing political unrest in Rwanda and news of the persecution of Tutsis. As Jeanne listens to this, "the sense of an approaching calamity crept up to her like a predator." Jansen's description of the brutal massacre that follows is candid and horrifying, especially when Jeanne witnesses the murders of her mother and brother. Some readers may feel that the opening notes for each chapter, from Jansen to her daughter, disrupt the narrative flow as the author reflects on the vastness of Jeanne's loss and the depth of her strength and resilience (she likens the girl's resolve to that of her namesake: "Jeanne d'Arc of the thousand hills, you are a fighter!"). But the account of Jeanne's survival is remarkable and inspiring, as she indeed proves herself a fighter in many ways, battling sadness, extreme physical discomfort and an acute sense of loneliness. The heroine's story ends on a welcome note of hope, as the author describes a girl riding on an airplane, bound for Germany, where after "a time of getting to know each other" she will know "that she belongs to us." Ages 12-up.
Recommended *

Reviewed March 2006
Eight-year-old Jeanne was the only one of her family to survive the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Then a German family adopted her, and her adoptive mother now tells Jeanne's story in a compelling fictionalized biography that stays true to the traumatized child's bewildered viewpoint. Jeanne is witness to unspeakable horror, but the tragedy isn't exploited in her narrative. Nor is Jeanne sentimental about the world she loses: she feels jealous of her sister and distant from her father, and she takes her comfortable Tutsi Catholic home in Kibungo for granted. Readers unfamiliar with the history may be somewhat bewildered. Who are the Tutsis? Who are the Hutus? Why were almost a million people massacred? But that confusion is part of the story. An appended time line fills in some of the facts, but of course, there's no explanation. Woven into the child's story are brief, contemporary commentaries, set in italics, by the Jeanne's German mother, who speaks to her child about loss, fury, survivor guilt, and healing. Occasionally, the narrative is too detailed, especially about daily life before the massacre, but Crawford's translation from the German is always clear and eloquent. An elemental account of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders ("And the world looked on. Or looked away"), this book is an important addition to the Holocaust curriculum.
Hazel Rochman

Novel of the Rwandan Genocide has personal roots
By Sally Lodge, Publishers Weekly, 3/23/2006

In April 1996, Hanna and Reinhold Jansen of Siegburg, Germany, received a phone call from the African mission in Cologne, through which the couple had adopted orphaned Rwandan twins the prior year. The misson wanted to know if the Jansens would be willing to take in yet another Rwandan orphan.

They agreed, opening their home and hearts to Jeanne d'Arc Umubyeyi, who was the sole member of her Tutsi family to survive the horrific 1994 genocide in her country. She had traveled to Germany to live with her aunt, who contacted the African mission when she realized that she was not able to take care of her niece.

Ten-year-old Jeanne quickly warmed to her new family, which included 12 other children, most of whom were also war orphans. As the girl learned to speak German, she began to share with her adoptive mother the story of her past, which included witnessing the murders of her mother and brother and the massacre of many others. Hanna Jansen went on to shape a novel based on Jeanne's traumatic, often unthinkable experiences. First published in Germany, Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You will be released here next month by Carolrhoda Books, in a translation by Elizabeth D. Crawford.

Asked about her inspiration for relaying her daughter's saga in a novel, Jansen explains that she and Jeanne "had been discussing it together for four years. The older she became, the more we tried to see her detailed memories in the whole context of the genocide and to draw on other sources, in order to understand the connections better. The genocide was continually ignored by Western media and Western policy, not only while it was happening but also for a long time afterward. Many people in this country did not even know where Rwanda was. This gave me the idea of writing a book in which the reader could develop a close emotional connection to a child who was subjected to such a dreadful experience. I also wanted to correct the picture of an 'uncivilized Africa,' so that no one could get the idea that the fearful crimes were committed by so-called 'savages.' "

On a more subjective note, writing Jeanne's story, Jansen reflects, "meant for me personally coping with the terrible events that, through the children, also have become a part of our personal history. I wanted to draw Jeanne's parents and siblings out of the void of namelessness so that they could be seen as persons who were known and loved, proxies for the other millions of dead. It was also Jeanne's wish to give the victims a face and a voice. In addition, I wanted to tell something about hope and the strength to live."

For Jeanne, the mother-daughter conversations that provided the frame for Over a Thousand Hills were, Jansen says, "labors of memory and grief. They helped her to take leave and to open herself to her new life." Noting that her daughter's keen memory made her "a very reliable witness," Jansen remarks that recalling even the positive aspects of her past was painful for Jeanne: "It was hard for her to return to the good memories of her family that, until then, she had split off from herself. To feel what she had lost called up enormous grief in her, which I had to cushion. Sometimes I could only hold her tight, not knowing how to comfort her."

Tackling the task of fusing fact and fiction, the author discovered that she and Jeanne complemented each other in quite a remarkable way. As Jansen set out to "unfurl my own powers of imagination and invent truthfully," she repeatedly came uncannily close to the reality of her daughter's experiences. When Jeanne read finished chapters to give her mother feedback, Jansen realized that her intuitions "were sometimes so close to the truth that I would invent something Jeanne had in fact experienced. Some days she would come to me with the manuscript and say, 'Mama, today you remembered something that I had forgotten.' "

The importance of remembering is, in fact, one of the premises of Jansen's novel-and something about which she feels passionate. "I want this to be a book against indifference and forgetting," she says. "The novel allows readers to imagine all dimensions of the genocide, and the closeness the reader feels to Jeanne's character awakens the wish to become more concerned with what happened in Rwanda, perhaps even to become active." The message Jansen most hopes to impart to her readers takes the form of a compelling directive: "Life is precious! We must handle it wisely and should never give up."