Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide

"Murder had a name. Why was it named crime for one person to kill another, but not for a government to kill millions of people? Shouldn't states be held accountable for trying to destroy entire peoples - their lives, cultures and histories?"
Raphael Lemkin

Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. When he learned about the massacres of Armenians he developed a general interest in religious and ethnic persecution (via). Lemkin also cited "Quo Vadis", written by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, as a source of inspiration to protect minorities (via).

Here was a group of people collectively senteced to death for the only reason that they believed in Christ. And nobody could help them. I became so fascinated with the story that I looked up all the similar instances in  history. Raphael Lemkin

Lemkin was convinced that there was an international law needed that protected groups. In the 1930s, he tried to introduce legal safeguards at international forums but did not succeed (via). Presenting a paper at the Leagute of Nations legal committee in Madrid lost him his job (via). In the corridors of the United Nations, he was considered "unpleasant company", socially he was often ignored. Upon learning about the executions in Poland, in 1942, he wrote Roosevelt a letter asking him to take action and received the disappointing reply to be patient (via).

He became obsessed with a crime that, at that point, had no name: the mass murder of groups, simply because of their identity. He was aware of the Turkish massacre of Armenians and of the Assyrians murdered in Iraq – unpunished crimes that would allow Hitler to believe his final solution could be achieved without international intervention. Lemkin identified the stages that led to mass murder: the demonisation of a group, the destruction of its culture, restriction of its freedoms and rights, the small rehearsals of extermination. (via)

In his book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe", published in 1944, Lemkin introduced the term "genocide", consisting of the Greek prefix genos ("race", tribe) and the Latin suffix cide (killing) (via), a new word for an old practice.

By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing)…. Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group. (via)

When Germany invaded Poland, Lemkin fled from Europe and sought asylum in Sweden, then in the United States. The parting words of his mother were:

You realize, Raphael, that it is you, not we, who needs protection now … of all of us only you do not live the life of love. You are the lonely and the loveless one. Still, you have been carrying the burden of your idea, which is based on love … We know you will continue your work, for the protection of peoples. Unfortunately, it is needed now more than ever before. (via)

Lemkin started teaching at Duke University. He joined the War Department in Washington, DC, as an analyst documenting Nazi atrocities. Later, he was part of the legal team preparing the Nuremberg Trials where he made sure the word "genocide" - although not yet a legal crime - was at least included in the indictment against the Nazi leaders. In Nuremberg he also learned about the death of 49 family members including his parents, who had been killed in death camps, the Warsaw ghetto and death marches or starved to death (via). The fact that genocide was not legally considered to be crime made Lemkin believe that the Nuremberg Trial did not serve complete justice (via)

His efforts and campaigns to see "genocide" added to the international law continued and finally, in December 1948, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (via).

Genocide "embodies the social ontology of ‘groupism’, because genocide is about the destruction of groups per se, not individuals per se. Lemkin thought that the Nazi policies were radically new, but only in the context of modern civilization. Wars of extermination have marked human society from antiquity until the religious conflagrations of early modern Europe, after which the doctrine that dominated was that war should be conducted against states rather than populations. Given that forty-nine members of his family died in the Holocaust, Lemkin's ecumenical approach to human suffering is at once astonishing and exemplary." (Moses, 2012)

He spent his last years in poverty in a New York flat, his funeral was attended by only a few people (via). Despite the key role he played in the creation of international laws, despite changing "the world with one word" (via)  and the numerous awards he received and having been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice, he is "virtually unknown" (via), and a "prophet without honors" (via), 

The United States, Lemkin's adopted country, did not ratify the Genocide Convention during his lifetime. He believed that his efforts to prevent genocide had failed. "The fact is that the rain of my work fell on a fallow plain," he wrote, "only this rain was a mixture of the blood and tears of eight million innocent people throughout the world. Included also were the tears of my parents and my friends." (via)

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- Moses, A. D. (2012). Raphael Lemkin, and the Concept of Genocide.
- photograph (UN photo) of Raphael Lemkin via