Rosenberg said he and Lehner have stayed in touch over the years, and Lehner asked if he’d be interested in having someone who lived through the Rwandan genocide speak to his class.
Lehner, a former member of Wittenberg’s tennis team, is a volunteer assistant coach for the university’s men’s and women’s tennis teams and current tennis director at Five Seasons Sports Club in Dayton. He was a history major who specialized in more social/European history at the university, but was always intrigued by Rosenberg’s classes.
“Once I took his thought-provoking class, ‘Genocides and Civil wars in Africa’ I wanted to gain as much knowledge on Africa as I could. Rosenberg captivates you in a very grim historical turn with slavery and colonialism. In wanting to learn more about this history, I took as many classes as he offered on the subject,” he said.
Lehner introduced Rosenberg to Pacifique Mbaraga, who plays tennis at the club when he’s not traveling for his job as a nurse. Mbaraga is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide — he was just 16 years old when it happened in 1994.
In the Rwandan genocide 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority, were murdered by the Hutu ethnic majority.
The genocide was started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali and quickly spread throughout the country when citizens were worked up by local officials and the Hutu Power government to fight against their neighbors. By the time the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front gained control of the country, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were dead, and two million refugees (mainly Hutus) fled Rwanda.
Lehner teaches Mbaraga’s daughters tennis and likes to get to know the players and parents. After talking with him, Lehner said Mbaraga was surprised he knew African history so he told him about his time at Wittenberg. Lehner then reached out to Rosenberg to see if he’d be able to use his connection, and Mbaraga agreed to speak in his class.
“It was incredibly powerful and moving for all of my students to hear what he went through, and it humanized everything we had been talking about in class,” Rosenberg said.
Student Alexis Opdycke said Mbaraga did an “incredible job” sharing his experience living in Rwanda, something she will remember even after her time at the university.
“Sometimes in history, we are so far removed from an event that it is difficult to understand the emotions associated with it,” she said. “Pacifique helped our class understand how deeply those living in Rwanda were affected by the genocide. His experience helped me understand the reality of the Rwandan genocide. Having speakers like Pacifique absolutely helps us to grasp material.”
As an alumni, Lehner said it’s his “duty” to help other students and that the ability to network is a skill he still relies on to this day.
“This time around it was Pacifique giving his first-hand account of the genocide in Rwanda, which was the meeting of my tennis world and history world – also initiated at Wittenberg,” he said. “This, I believe and hope, are what many alumni bring to the table to make sure their educational experience is ‘passed on’ to the next generation.”
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