From Age 35 / From Sudan
Arrived here in 2007
The ongoing battle between Sudan's government forces and armed rebel groups in the country's Darfur region has resulted in over 300,000 dead and 2.5 million more displaced. The United Nations has called Darfur the world's worst humanitarian crisis today.
Killing and bombing. That was Darfur in 2003. People everywhere were dying; my brother was killed helping others escape. Thousands of families from different villages were fleeing the area. They needed water, food, and animals to carry their children. It took weeks, but we worked together and finally crossed the border into Chad.
I stayed in Chad until 2006. I worked as a guide for Paul Salopek, who was reporting for National Geographic, and we went back to Darfur in August 2006. The situation was no better, and Paul, our driver, Ali, and I were captured by the rebels. They were from my tribe, but they had joined with the government. They kept us for a week, beating and threatening us. They hung Ali and me upside down from trees. Death and bones were everywhere-you could smell it. They turned us over to the Sudanese government. These were the same troops who had killed thousands of my fellow villagers. They showed me a torture chamber and put a gun to my head. The guards threatened to kill me many times. I was prepared to die. Instead, the government sentenced us to 25 years in prison. But the United States and other countries pressured them to release us, and in September, I was granted refugee status.
I went to New Jersey in March 2007. I moved to Baltimore in December and worked with the Darfur Coalition, an advocacy group. I miss Darfur. It's my homeland, and I want to spread the word about the problems there. But life here in the United States is good. It's safe, and I feel like my life is starting over. There's so much here to see and experience. It's a long way from Sudan to the United States.
Immaculée Ilibagiza
Age 39 / From Rwanda
Arrived here in 1998
Rwanda's Tutsi minority and Hutu majority fought for centuries over class and ethnic differences. In 1994, Hutu extremists carried out a gruesome genocide, and as many as 800,000 died.
I was on Easter break from the National University of Rwanda when President Juvénal Habyarimana was murdered. It was 1994, and Hutus were killing the Tutsis—families, kids, soldiers, everybody. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
On the second day, my father told me to go hide at a pastor's house that was close by. Pastor Simeon Nzabahimana hid eight of us in a tiny bathroom in his bedroom. There was no speaking, no talking. We just sat there waiting for the killers, who went from home to home searching. We could hear them outside. Through a window in the bathroom, we could see the killing. They had machetes and spears. At first, when they came into the house, they came right up to the bathroom but never looked in. God saved us. God blinded them. Before they came back the second time, the pastor pushed a wardrobe in front of the door, so then it was hidden.
We were in the bathroom 91 days. We had little to eat, and I lost 50 pounds. Finally, French troops arrived near my village. We snuck out at night and went to their camp. For the first time in months, I could breathe. Then I found out two of my brothers, my parents, and my grandparents had been killed.
I came here on asylum in 1998 and worked with the United Nations. I live in New York with my two children.
I was in the worst situation I could ever imagine—losing everybody and everything. But I have forgiven them now, the killers. Now I feel like a part of the United States. It's home, and I love it here. I want to tell people that the things that we have here in our hands, our possessions, are not what determines who we are. I want to encourage people to be strong and not lose hope.
Sherma Ssaif
Age 37 / From Iran
Arrived here in 1987
The Ayatollah Khomeini led the 1979 Iranian revolution, transforming the state from a monarchy to an Islamic republic. One of his first acts was to root out members of the old United States-backed regime.
My dad was an officer in the Iranian military, part of the security force for the Shah. When the Shah was overthrown, Ayatollah Khomeini's troops stormed the military installations, and if the officers put up a fight, they'd kill them. Lots of people fled Iran, but my dad would not leave his command. When the rebels took over his base in Tehran, they put him in jail. After three months, they let him go. He told me how they tied him up and put a gun to his head and shot blanks. They wanted the names and locations of his friends and fellow officers. My dad told me he never broke down, because if he had told them anything, he wouldn't have been of any value and they'd have killed him.
One day, in 1983, when I was in eighth grade, I found my dad at home with three men. They held out a piece of paper and said, "This is your execution warrant. Say goodbye to your son." He gave me a hug and a kiss, then whispered, "Don't tell them anything." My dad had been part of a group that was planning a coup against Khomeini's government. The men told me that my dad was a traitor and he was going to die. But then I heard the front door slam and saw my father running down the street. The guys started chasing him. They came back a few minutes later, and one of the guys put a gun to my head, screaming, "Where did he go?!" I remembered what my father had told me. So I kept quiet. Dad eventually escaped to Pakistan in 1983 and a year later went to Turkey.
My mother, brother, and I tried for several years to leave the country. Finally, in 1985, we bribed the right guy, and we were issued passports. We didn't tell anyone. We were scared someone would blow the whistle on us. We boarded a plane for Istanbul. I was shaking. I just knew somebody was going to stop us. Even when we were up in the air, I was waiting for the plane to be turned around.
But we made it, and Dad met us in Istanbul. Two years later, we moved to Orange County, California. My goal became to experience America. So for college, I applied all over the Midwest to see what it was like. For dental school, I decided to go to the East Coast. Then I joined the Navy in 1998. Soon after, I earned my dental degree at the University of Pittsburgh and was working at the Pentagon on 9/11. I remember hearing this huge explosion and then seeing the smoke and fire. I helped pull people from the burning building and did what I could for them. Since 2005, I've lived in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and I am in the Navy Reserve.
I think I've done a good job experiencing America so far.
Editors' note: Saif was given the Navy-Marine Corps medal for valor for his heroism on 9/11.
Timothy Chhim
Age 54 / From Cambodia
Arrived here in 1976
The Communist Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, seized control of Cambodia's government from 1975 to 1979. Approximately 1.5 million Cambodians were killed during the reign of one of history's most brutal regimes.
When the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, we were told to leave the city immediately. I relocated to the countryside, but a month later, Communist soldiers showed up at my home and took me away. I was being taken to the killing fields, along with 70 other families who were either well-educated like me or were high-ranking officials under the old government. I was being held in a vacant Buddhist temple, waiting to be executed. A decision had to be made: be killed later or be killed right there on the spot. I knew I had a very slight chance to survive, but that was enough. So I ran. Guards started shooting as I ran toward some bushes nearby. I heard the bullets flying over my head, but I just kept running and running.
I got to the refugee camp in Thailand four weeks later. I stayed there for over a year and met my wife, Neang. A priest who worked for Church World Service helped us get to America, and we landed in Jersey City. I went to college and in 1987 opened an Allstate insurance office. We came here with nothing and now have three wonderful kids and a successful business. It's the American Dream.
I will always remember when I was starving and dehydrated in the middle of the Cambodian jungles. All I needed was just a tiny piece of food and a few drops of water so I could move a little bit closer to real freedom. It's a freedom that we as Americans should never take for granted.
Henry L. Fernandez
Age 52 / From Cuba
Arrived here in 1966
In 1959, Fidel Castro and a band of Communist revolutionaries overthrew Cuba's Batista government.
We fled Cuba in 1964. There was repression and a lack of freedom of speech; dissenters were executed and thrown in jail. The government was socializing all businesses and closing the Catholic schools and expelling the nuns and priests. After my father, an attorney, filed the immigration application, all our possessions were confiscated, including photos and diplomas. We could leave with only one set of clothes. Two years later, after a brief stay in Madrid, we moved to New York. I was nine years old.
The six of us lived in Manhattan in a single hotel room with a little kitchenette. My father got a job as an administrative assistant with an import-export firm he had done some business with when we were in Cuba. On nights and weekends, he did odd jobs, such as translation, to earn a little extra money. When he'd saved up enough, we moved to a small two-bedroom apartment, where we lived for ten years. There was a sense of excitement as I explored the city with my family. My siblings and I obviously didn't have the same worries that my father did. He had four kids and a wife to feed. My father went three years without buying a pair of shoes.
Today, between the four kids, we have five bachelor's degrees, eight master's degrees, and two doctorates. I'm now vice president for government affairs for USA Funds, a nonprofit corporation that provides financial support for postsecondary education. I vote regularly and am an elected school board member in the Indianapolis school district where my children attend school.
One of the folks who most influenced my life is Fidel Castro. When we left Cuba, Castro took everything my father owned. But the one thing he could not take was his education. My father was able to start a new life, and he taught us the value of an education. I think my siblings and I realized the dreams that my father had for us.
Steve Reger
Age 69 / From Hungary
Arrived here in 1957
A student demonstration against the Stalinist government of Hungary turned into a nationwide revolt, which was then brutally crushed by the Soviets.
I was off from school when the revolution broke out in October of 1956. The radio announced that we could not go downtown. So everyone went downtown. I met up with some friends and went to the Stalin statue in Budapest. By then, it was already torn down. The whole population was involved with the revolt. We were excited, until the Russians came with tanks. We stood in the road to try to stop them. Of course, they didn't stop. So people threw Molotov cocktails at the tanks. It was mayhem.
My uncle and I decided to leave the country in November by jumping the border into Austria. My father had died in World War II, and my mother had to stay behind to look after my disabled sister. We got on a train, and after a few hours, it stopped suddenly in the middle of an open field. Everybody jumped off and sprinted toward the border.
When Russian soldiers started shooting, we hid in the root cellar of a house. The next day, we crossed a river and made it into Austria. Cold and soaking wet, we were taken to a nearby village, where we had to declare what country we wanted to go to. My uncle and I didn't hesitate: America.
I arrived in the United States on March 6, 1957, at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. I was 17 and knew two words of English: horse and power.
At Camp Kilmer, my uncle got a job offer in Denver, and I went with him. I started going to night school and got a job as a busboy at a boardinghouse, where I met my wife, Sara. I earned a bachelor's degree in engineering science at the University of Virginia in 1967 and then a PhD in biomedical engineering in 1973.
For the past 23 years, I've worked at the Cleveland Clinic, where I'm the emeritus director of rehabilitation technology. Sara and I have a son and a daughter and three grandkids. My mother and sister never came to the United States, because of my sister's illness. They both passed away nearly 25 years ago. I was able to visit them several times, and I think I was able to help them more from here than if I had stayed in Budapest.
When I first arrived in America, I never could have imagined all the opportunities and possibilities. Everything changed for me, and I feel very lucky.
No matter how many difficulties we may have in this country, rest assured it could never be as bad as it was in Hungary under Communist rule. As long as we maintain freedom of speech, freedom of movement, and the ability to make choices, we can overcome anything.
Charlene Schiff
Age 79 / From Poland
Arrived here in 1948
During World War II, favorite Nazi targets were Jewish enclaves. In Poland, few were spared.
The Germans marched into Horochow in the summer of 1941. They burned all our synagogues and took away hundreds of Jewish leaders, including my father. That was the last I saw of him.
My older sister, mother, and I were marched into the ghetto and were assigned a room with three other families. The next summer, rumors started flying that the ghetto was going to be destroyed, so my mother arranged for my sister to stay with a farmer, who agreed to hide one person. We didn't hear from her and figured she'd made it. Mother then found another farmer, who said he would allow us to hide in his farmhouse. So a few days later, my mother and I snuck out of the ghetto at night. We started toward the river, staying near the banks. The next morning, we saw others from the ghetto trying to cross the river. Everything was so quiet and still.
Then the shots rang out. The soldiers stood on the bank, yelling, "We can see you, Jew!" When the others stood up and raised their hands to surrender, they were shot. If they came up for air, they were shot.
My mother and I spent four days in the river. The water was up to my neck. One morning I woke up and my mother wasn't there-she was gone. I never saw her or my sister again.
I was 11.
When the soldiers left, I ran to the farmhouse, but the farmer had changed his mind and said I could stay only one night, and if I wasn't gone by morning, he'd turn me over to the authorities. That night, I fled into the woods and found six other survivors. Some kids spotted us. They came back with villagers, so we hid from them in a big haystack. But they had pitchforks. I could hear the screaming as they stabbed all the other Jews to death-five adults and a baby boy.
I spent two years in the woods alone. I slept during the day in a little grave I'd dug, and at night I would crawl out and search for something—anything—to eat. I became very ill. In the spring of 1944, a group of Soviet soldiers literally stepped on top of the little camouflaged hole where I was hiding. They picked me up and took me to a hospital, where I was nursed back to health.
After the war, I ended up in a displaced-persons camp in Germany. I wrote my relatives in America and told them I was alive. I arrived in New York in 1948.
I was so grateful. But it was all very overwhelming and confusing. Life was very different. I lived with my aunt in Ohio, where I met my husband, Ed. We were married in 1951 and had a son. My husband spent 29 years in the military, including two tours of duty in Vietnam. He passed away just a few months ago.
For a long time, I didn't talk about the Holocaust and what I had been through. But before he died, my husband convinced me that it was my duty to honor the millions who'd perished. He was right.
I also want to send a message of hope to the young people of today. I'm an optimist, and I feel that younger generations will learn from the mistakes that my generation made and will fight indifference and injustice.
Becoming an American citizen was a gift. This country gives everyone an opportunity to reach for the stars.
It is amazing to see the hardships these people have endured just to enter our great country. It makes me wonder how many things I take for granted that many others around the world can only dream of.