USC Shoah Foundation Women in Genocide / Photo by Maya Richard-Craven/ Contributor Neon Tommy

This evening, the USC Shoah Foundation Student Association (SFISA) hosted the event “Women of the Holocaust, Cambodia, and Rwanda: Three Survivors in Conversation” as part of USC's inaugural Genocide Awareness Month.

The event concluded a month long series of other events hosted by USC SFISA, the Armenian Student Association, USC STAND Against Genocide, USC Hillel, USC Students for Israel, and Jewish World Watch. 

Stephen Smith, the director of the USC Shoah Foundation and founder of the U.K. Holocaust Centre, moderated the conversation. The three women sat in the following order from left to right: Rwandan Genocide Survivor, Edith Umugiraneza, Cambodian Genocide Survivor, Sara Pol-Lim, and Holocaust Survivor, Celina Biaz.  

 Edith Umugiraneza watched her own mother beg for soldiers to take her life instead of killing her children, and was the only member of her family to survive the Rwandan genocide. Prior to the genocide, Umugiraneza was a devoted member of the Catholic church in her hometown.

However, her Mom told her and her siblings to hide at “the church across the way” from their home, because the church “was a  safe and respectful place.” But killings began to take place in churches, and Umugiraneza has not been inside a Catholic church since 1994.  

Sara Pol-Lim was only a young girl when Pol-Pot took over in Cambodia. Citizens of Cambodia were no longer allowed to practice any religion, and her entire family was split up because killing fields were divided by gender and age.

There were men’s camps, women’s camps and children’s camps. By the end of the genocide, only Pol-Lim and her mother had survived. 

Holocaust http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261877/Leon-Leyson-youngest-Hol... Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook">survivor Celina Biniaz worked in Oscar Schindler’s factory because her hands were small enough to clean. She did not tell her own children that she was a holocaust survivor until they were eleven and fourteen years of age. And not until 1967 was the word “holocaust” used in the general public. Before then, Biniaz was considered a displaced person, and her neighbors just thought she was a European immigrant.

When Steven Sielberg's  “Schindler’s List” came out, she finally had a point of reference to explain her experience to family and friends. "Schindler saved my life, but I always tell Spielberg that you gave me a voice. And you are my second Schindler.” She told the audience. 

After introducing the three women, Smith directed the same questions to each of them: what does remembrance mean to you?

"It is important for me to remind people, particularly young people, to fight bigotry, to fight hate,’ answered holocaust survivor Biniaz. "There are lots of monuments around the world, but there is nothing like the human voice,” she added. 

But the Rwandan genocide survivor’s personal definition of remembrance struck me the hardest, "Remembrance means prevention. It's educating, I want people to know what happened. It’s my own way to honor my people, the ones I lost.” 

Smith asked the second question, how does motherhood play into memory and experience and what we need to reflect on here? 

Rwandan survivor Umugiraneza said, "it’s really hard. When they started killing my siblings. I remember [my mother] saying I am going to give myself up so that I won't see my kids die. If I don’t have my kids what will I have to survive for anyway?’” 

Biniaz continued, “I tried to be a good mother by letting them have a good childhood. I never talked about my experiences. My son did not know I was a holocaust survivor until he was fourteen and my daughter did not know until she was eleven. I cannot understand how some people can put this guilt on their children. Children have nothing to do with what I suffered. Let them make peace and be happy.” 

What do you feel we may or may not have learned from your experiences? Do you have hope for the future? 

“Well, the world has moved on.” Answered Biaz with a smile.  “I find that young people today are much more accepting of change and difference in people, and value those differences. So I am very hopeful.” 

Pol-Lim really articulated how history will not continue to repeat itself when she noted, “In some way, I have so many conversation with people who ask ‘why does history continue to repeat itself?’ In looking around to all of you and your future leadership career, it depends on raising the kind of children we want and the leadership we want to see in the world.” 

See more about Steven Spielberg's announcement to join the USC Shoah Foundation in "Resisting the Path to Genocide." 

Reach Contributor Maya Richard-Craven here.