A Dialogue Among Genocide Survivors: Lessons from the Holocaust and the Genocide Against Tutsis in Rwanda

Speakers

• 

  James Orbinski Principal, Massey College
  

  James Orbinski

  Principal, Massey College

  Dr. James Orbinski is Principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto. To this role, Dr. Orbinski brings a lifelong commitment to learning, leadership, and civility for the public good. As a medical doctor, humanitarian practitioner and advocate, author, and global health scholar, James Orbinski believes in actively engaging and shaping our world so that it is more just, fair, and humane.

  Providing medical humanitarian relief worldwide in situations of war, famine, epidemic disease and genocide with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Dr. Orbinski also served as MSF’s International Council president and accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Médecins Sans Frontières. He is the founding director of York University’s Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, co-founder of Dignitas International, and co-chair of the founding and startup of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi).

  Renowned for his ground-breaking research on medical humanitarianism, infectious diseases, global health governance, and the health impacts of climate change, Dr. Orbinski’s work is documented in his bestselling book, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarianism in the 21st Century, as well as the award-winning documentary film Triage: the Humanitarian Dilemma of Dr. James Orbinski.

  James Orbinski holds an MD degree from McMaster University, and an MA in International Relations from the University of Toronto. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, awarded for a lifetime of leadership in global health and humanitarianism, and received Canada’s Meritorious Service Cross for his leadership in providing direct medical relief in Kigali during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda.

  James and his wife Rolie lived at Massey College when James held the inaugural Saul Rose Fellowship at Massey College. In the twenty years since, James has served the Massey community as a Senior Fellow and on the Board of Governors. As well as serving as Principal of Massey College, Dr. Orbinski is a full Professor at the University of Toronto’s Termerty Faculty of Medicine and the Munk School for Public Policy.

• 

  Angela Marinos Chief General Counsel, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
  

  Angela Marinos

  Chief General Counsel, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

  Angela is currently Chief General Counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human
  Rights.
  Prior to joining the Wallenberg Centre, Angela was General Counsel at the Department
  of Justice, where she spent almost 23 years of her career litigating a wide range of
  public law cases involving constitutional law, national security, citizenship and
  immigration, and complicity in crimes against humanity. Angela has litigated over 130
  cases across all levels of court, from the Federal Court to the Federal Court of Appeal
  and the Supreme Court of Canada.
  Angela has deep experience in international human rights law, particularly crimes
  against humanity. She was co-counsel on two citizenship revocation trials involving
  concentration camp guards during the Second World War; was lead counsel for 9 years
  in Oberlander, an interpreter for a Nazi mobile killing squad; and was lead counsel on
  two international cases involving crimes against humanity committed in the former
  Yugoslavia, where she led a team in gathering evidence of such crimes in Vukovar,
  Croatia. She has also argued many cases involving inadmissibility to Canada for
  complicity in crimes against humanity, including senior officials of Saddam Hussein’s
  regime, the Taliban regime, and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.
  Most recently, Angela has intervened in several appeals before the Supreme Court of
  Canada, involving child pornography, historic sexual abuse at a boarding school, and
  domestic violence.
  Beyond her busy litigation practice, Angela has taught Constitutional Law at the Lincoln
  Alexander School of Law of Toronto Metropolitan University. She has also done a great
  deal of coaching and mentoring and has been a speaker at many legal conferences and
  workshops.
  Angela has a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in English Literature, as well as a
  Bachelor of Civil Law and Bachelor of Laws from McGill University, where she
  graduated with Distinction. She also holds an Advanced LLM in Public International Law
  with a specialization in International Criminal Law from Leiden University in the
  Netherlands.
  Born and raised in Montreal, she is fluently trilingual and aspiring to a fourth language

• 

  Nathan Leipciger Educator and Holocaust Survivor
  

  Nathan Leipciger

  Educator and Holocaust Survivor

  Nate Leipciger was born in Chorzow, Poland on February 28, 1928. He had one sister Linka. In September 1939, the German army invaded Poland, and when the Nazis’ decided to make Chorzow “Judenrein”, Nate’s family was forced to leave their town and move to the town of Sosnowiec, which became a de facto ghetto. Nate and his family were transported to Auschwitz, where Nate was separated from his mother and sister, never to see them again. As luck would have it, Nate’s father was able to move Nate into his own line, thus being able to keep his son with him. Nate survived the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Funfteichen, Gross Rosen, Flossenberg, Leonberg, Muhldorf am Inn and Waldlager (two sub-camps of Dachau). Nate and his father were liberated on May 2, 1945 and immigrated to Canada in 1948. Nate married Bernice, and they have three daughters, three sons-in-law, nine grandchildren, and 12 great-grandchildren.

• 

  Clarisse Mukashumbusho Cechetto Educator and Survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi
  

  Clarisse Mukashumbusho Cechetto

  Educator and Survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi

  Born and raised in Kigali, Rwanda, Clarisse now calls London, Ontario home, where she teaches Grade 3 with the London District Catholic School Board. At just 10 years old, she survived the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, losing her parents, four siblings, and many extended family members. Alongside her sister, she rebuilt her life with strength and resilience. Today, she is a proud wife and mother of two boys. Driven by a deep passion for healing and community, Clarisse co-founded the Rwandan Mothers Team, a non-profit organization that supports mothers and families in Rwanda. She is committed to creating spaces of hope, support, and opportunity for others.

• 

  Bonny Reichert Award-winning Journalist and the Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor
  

  Bonny Reichert

  Award-winning Journalist and the Daughter of a Holocaust Survivor

  Bonny Reichert is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist and the daughter of a remarkable Holocaust survivor. She has been an editor at Chatelaine and Today’s Parent magazines, and a columnist at The Globe and Mail. After a significant birthday led her to the rigours of full-time chef school, Reichert began to explore her relationship with food on the page. Bonny’s culinary memoir, How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty, (January, 2025, Appetite Random House | Ballantine Random House) was an instant Globe and Mail and Toronto Star bestseller. As a work-in-progress, it also won the Dave Greber Book Award for social justice writing, in 2022. Bonny holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction from King’s University in Halifax. She lives in Toronto with her husband Michael and little dog, Bruno. Her three adult children come and go.

• 

  Mathilde Mukesharugo A Survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi
  

  Mathilde Mukesharugo

  A Survivor of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi

  Mathilde Mukesharugo is a mother of two children and grandmother. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology from York University and currently works for the City of Toronto. As a survivor of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, Mathilde faced the profound loss of her husband, grandparents, brothers, cousins, friends, and colleagues. She has shared her experiences at various events, underscoring the importance of remembering those who have passed away. Mathilde believes it is vital to keep their memory alive as a way to combat genocide ideologies and educate children and future generations of Rwandans about the realities of the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. Through her advocacy, she stresses the necessity of acknowledging the past to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated. Currently she is a caseworker at Toronto Employment Services