GENOCIDE. WHAT’S THAT?
Raphael Lemkin __________________
G
enocide, what’s that? That was Lemkin’s joke to people he met at parties in 1948.1 It was funny because everyone knew that this ‘sad, witty, middle-aged man’ spoke of just about nothing else. ‘Genocide’ the word that he had created to describe the intent to destroy a group of people was his life. Having the crime recognised throughout the world was all he thought about.
Sometimes people would avoid Raphael Lemkin. Some thought that he was obsessed, others believed him to be completely unrealistic in his goal. In the end, though, Lemkin achieved what just about everyone thought was impossible. He persuaded the world to adopt the term ‘genocide’. Raphael Lemkin was born on 24th June 1900, into a Polish-speaking Jewish family on a farm on the outskirts of Wolkowysk in what is now Belarus in eastern Europe. He lived on the farm with a big family of brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins. Lemkin’s mother, Bella, initially taught her sons at home, and was a big influence on Raphael emerging fascination with learning, with language, poetry and songs. He also became fascinated with the books he read which told of horrible slaughter of peoples of the past. Lemkin later remembered that he was ‘appalled by the frequency of the evil…’2 Yet Lemkin’s life on the farm and in the city of Wolkowysk where his family moved to was not completely care free. In 1913 he became aware of the anti-Jewish racism that was all around. Jewish people were unfairly blamed for crimes that they did not commit…and when this happens other Jews were often attacked in brutal ‘pogroms’. Just two years later came news of other atrocities that would shape Lemkin’s life. Lemkin was a teenager in 1915 when news of the Turkish slaughter of Armenians reached his city. 3 He was suddenly exposed to the idea of intentional mass murder of a population and began thinking more deeply about what this meant. At Lwow University, where Lemkin later studied, he asked the professors that taught him about the problem of the murder of innocent people simply because of the group they belonged to. The professors said that countries had the right to treat their citizens how they wished. Lemkin refused to believe that was right. He began to think of creating a law that would protect innocent people who were attacked because of the colour of their skin or the god they worshipped. Lemkin moved on to become a prosecutor in Warsaw after completing his PhD in 1929. Lemkin spent a long time thinking about the law that he wanted to create. In 1933, just as Hitler came to power in Germany, he developed the concept of a crime of ‘barbarity’ by which he meant ‘destroying a national of religious’ group of people and the crime of ‘vandalism’ which, in his view, meant ‘destroying works of culture’. He was to present his ideas at a Conference in Madrid but the Polish government, seemingly keen not to offend their new Nazi neighbours, prevented Lemkin from attending. It was when those Nazi neighbours invaded Poland in September 1939 that Raphael Lemkin became a refugee. He promptly left Warsaw after the city was attacked but his escape on a train was interrupted by the bombing of his train, leading him to resume his journey through rural Poland on foot and by horse and cart. Lemkin went east, towards his parents. By misleading Soviet soldiers and managing to avoid Nazi bombing runs, Lemkin was able to find his way home. After a short stay Lemkin decided to move on. His parents would not accompany him. They felt safe where they were. Lemkin’s mother told him “You realise, Raphael, that it is you, not we, who needs protection now.” Lemkin would never see his parents again. They were to be murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. 11
