“I marched through the Rosental valley on foot and arrived at my father's house unharmed in the evening after more than four years of service.” These words of Franz Arneitz who was a soldier throughout the First World War, where approximately 15 to 22 million people died, were portrayed in the first items of the temporary exhibition titled “How Wars End” in Villach, Austria. Since May this year, I had been meaning to check it out. I had no expectations, but the many flyers across the city caught my attention. I finally went two days before it closed, and I’m glad I did. The visit has stayed with me in ways I didn’t anticipate. The exhibition traced six major wars, from the Napoleonic campaigns to the World Wars, the Cold War, Yugoslav wars, and even the ongoing war in Ukraine, inviting visitors to reflect on how each of them ended, and what those endings mean for societies trying to rebuild. Even though I have never experienced war in my life, any form of violence feels strangely familiar. I believe this is the case for many Rwandans of my generation, born after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. We carry memories that are not ours but still shape how we see the world. We grew up surrounded by reminders of an unspeakable past. ALSO READ: Habyarimana's role in planning, implementing 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi At the How Wars End exhibition, there was an audio interview with a former Austrian soldier who survived World War I. He said that at some point, the soldiers began to envy their comrades who had lost their lives, because the dead were finally free from pain. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. Envying the dead. That is what war does; it makes the absence of life seem merciful. My mind immediately went to The Uncondemned, a documentary about the use of rape as a weapon during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. In it, one lawyer said that the survivors begged to be killed, only to be told by the perpetrators that they would not kill them. They said they were sparing them to be killed by grief. According to the lawyer, the women were indeed dying of grief. Imagine a world where the most generous thing someone could do for you is to end your suffering quickly. The soldier’s lament and the lawyer’s words portray that wars don’t just destroy bodies and buildings. They also destroy the will to live. Except, the women in the 1994 Genocide didn’t carry rifles; they weren’t soldiers. They didn’t fight for a flag or belong to a side. Their only “crime” was being born who they were. Their fate had already been decided for them, and they could hide, yes, in churches, in swamps, in the homes of strangers, but this would only postpone their death date. As I walked through the rooms of the Villach Museum, surrounded by faded photographs, rusted helmets, and yellowed letters sent home from the front, I realized how very little the world changes. Every generation claims to have learned from the last, yet the same mistakes repeat themselves with new justifications. The exhibition wasn’t about peacekeeping or reconciliation, or even how the United Nations comes in to “end” wars. Or maybe it was and I missed it. What I saw instead was about the human cost that continues long after the wars. That, I think, is the hardest part to accept: that wars don’t really end. At least not in the way we’re taught to think. They end on paper; through agreements, surrenders, and declarations, but they continue in memory, in trauma, in broken families and scars. They continue in the minds of survivors who have gone through the unthinkable. And guess what? There is always a war breaking out somewhere. Around 80 million people died during World War II alone. Millions more have died in the countless conflicts that followed, including in Rwanda, Vietnam, Bosnia, Syria, Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, DR Congo, and more. And yet, many more will never be counted. Their deaths are not recorded, their stories not told, their graves unmarked. Is war really inevitable or is it preventable? I come from a place that has witnessed the worst forms of atrocities, where the goal was killing to exterminate, and it was done in a systematic way that kills the victim in a painful and degrading way for all to see. It is easy to be cynical and say that war is part of human nature, but Rwanda’s story of forgiveness over revenge proves that even the deepest wounds do not have to lead to a battlefield. Maybe that’s the answer after all. Wars can surely end if we decide. The question should perhaps be, are we willing to pay the price?
