Ruth Messinger, president of the American Jewish World Service, urged an audience of Notre Dame students and faculty to help stop the genocide in the African region of Darfur. The event, which took place in the campus’ Eck Center Auditorium, drew comparisons between the events in Darfur and the Holocaust.

Messinger said people always question what they would have done had they been presented with the opportunity to save Jews during the Holocaust. But she said she does not believe this question is relevant, saying individuals should “question not what would you have done, but what are you doing.”

She termed her organization’s work in Darfur a “Holocaust memorial program,” inviting students to help stop the bloodshed before the tragedy reaches levels of atrocity akin to the Holocaust.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, and I hope that more of you will join us,” she said.

Explict portrayals of the violence ongoing in the region were brought to the audience’s attention by Messinger.

Messinger framed her speech as a “plea to a powerful university” to help stop the genocide in Darfur and prevent further massacres in the world. She urged Notre Dame and Indiana to divest from companies that buy or sell Sudanese oil, as 38 other colleges and universities across the nation have done already. She also said individuals should push private investing firms, such as Fidelity and Berkshire Hathaway, to follow that lead.

Messinger said each of the 2.5 million Darfur refugees has his or her own story - but all of these stories “are chillingly the same.”

When the Janjaweed attack a village, they start by bombing the town using Sudanese government planes painted white to look like humanitarian aid planes, she said. The Janjaweed militia then enters the village on horseback and trucks, brandishing knives, slaughtering the men, raping the women, killing the children and killing the livestock, whose carcasses they use to contaminate the well water, Messinger said.

“Rape is being used as a weapon of war in Darfur,” she said. “It is incomprehensible, but it is happening.”

Messinger described the refugee camps in Darfur and Chad as “appearing to stretch forever across the desert.”

In these camps, the women attempt to support themselves by gathering firewood, but they often must venture more than two kilometers outside the camps - at risk of attacked by the Janjaweed - to find any tree branches.

One woman, nonetheless, told Messinger she wouldn’t consider sending her husband or her son because she feared they would get killed if they were captured.

“I only get raped,” she said.