6 minute read
Introduction
Our letter to Raphael Lemkin
D
ear Mr Lemkin, Zero percent. None. Nobody. That is how many young people in our school knew your name when we asked them. Many told us that they knew about the word that you coined, ‘genocide’, but not many could tell us what it meant. So, that is why we wrote this book. It is our attempt to help other people, particularly those our age, to understand your life’s work, to get what genocide is all about…and to know that when the world said ‘Never Again’ after the Holocaust it didn’t fulfil that promise. To try and raise awareness we’ve researched your life and your work. We’ve traced your journey – the one that you made from your home in eastern Europe, fleeing from the Nazis to Sweden, across the Soviet Union to the USA. We’ve also tried to describe the journey that you made in your mind from reading about the plight of the Christians in Roman times, to the Armenians and then to your family in the Second World War. You couldn’t understand why a person might be prosecuted for killing an individual but the perpetrators of a million deaths could walk free. That is why you worked tirelessly to have ‘genocide’ recognised as a crime. Not even the memory of the Holocaust persuaded the leaders of the world to prevent genocide from happening again. We thought that it would be important to raise awareness of the times since 1945 when the promises made were broken.
We’ve had the honour of speaking to and learning from remarkable survivors of genocide. Bea Green came to Britain as part of the Kindertransport in the late 1930s. She had grown up in Munich, Germany and witnessed the horrors of Hitler’s regime. Eric Murangwa was a footballer who had a professional career cruelly cut short because extremists wanted him dead simply because he belonged to the ‘wrong’ group of people in Rwanda. Kadefa Rizvanović was able to escape the genocide in Srebrenica as a teenager but would never see her father and countless family members again. It was also a privilege to speak to Debay Manees who was forced to flee from Darfur in Sudan because of the attempt by the government of the country to wipe out the group of people that he was born into. What have all the survivors got in common? They were all born in different countries at different times… but they have all survived dreadful experiences and had their lives turned upside down simply because of their identity. More than that, they have all had the bravery to teach us about what they went through, how genocide in their countries happened and how it needs to be prevented in the future.
Our book focuses on the survivors of genocide more than the perpetrators. We think that the voices of those who survived need to be heard…and that they speak for all those who now have no voice. We didn’t think that it would be right to focus on the stories of those who planned or took part in the killings of innocent men, women and children. In between the experiences of the survivors who we have learned from, we thought that it would be important to explain how genocides begin with words, how it is not inevitable and that it can be stopped. We go on to outline what happens during the horrific times of extermination. Each genocide is unique and there are many more differences than similarities…but if everyone knew what the warning signs were then maybe genocide could be stopped before it starts.
Lastly, we’ve explained what is happening in the world today. We’ve written about how ‘Never Again’ has become ‘Yet Again’, again. The Yazidi people are still to receive justice, the Rohingya in Myanmar are having their existence destroyed by their own government and the genocidal campaign against the Uighur in China continues. The world watches on. Again. We don’t think that it has to be this way. You committed yourself to righting a wrong and achieved amazing things in your work to have genocide recognised as a crime. You worked against huge odds in a one person struggle to make the world a better place. We’d like to emulate your commitment to help those who suffer from the terrible persecution and racism that you witnessed…and hope that anyone who reads our book can do the same.
Everything in our book is true. It happened. We’re researched each story and have delved into court records, documents, books and articles to make sure that what we have written is accurate. We’ve tried to be as precise as we can with the terminology that we have used because we know that words matter. Of course, we haven’t been able to include everything that happened in the events that we describe but we hope that we have written enough for everyone to learn something new about genocide. You were a scholar – we hope that our book doesn’t offend your critical eye. …and if anyone buys our book they’ll know that any money that we receive will go to charities who help genocide survivors rebuild their lives and gives them a voice to educate others about their experiences. Thank you for everything that you did and please consider this as our contribution to your cause. We hope that it makes a difference… Yours sincerely,
Ben, Izzy, Yousef, Jack, Sam, Nat, Zainab, Maxi, Harry, Matthew, Anisha, Freddie, Calim, Nayaaz, Grace, Ozge, Jasper, Will, Amy, Yassin, Finlo, Ben, Haris, Chris, Ben, Louis and Fedaa
London
2020
On December 9th 1948, in the aftermath of the horror of the Holocaust the United Nations made ‘genocide’ a crime. The word ‘genocide’ had been thought up by a lawyer called Raphael Lemkin. He was a Polish Jew who had lost many members of his immediate family in the Holocaust. Lemkin combined the Greek word ‘genos’ (meaning ‘race’ or ‘people’) with the Latin word ‘cide’ (meaning ‘act of killing’). The United Nations voted in 1948 to define genocide as being committed when someone intends to destroy , in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.
The Holocaust
The Nazi regime and their collaborators murdered six million Jewish men, women and children. At the same time the Nazis persecuted other groups (like the Roma, and those with disabilities) because they thought they were inferior.
Bosnia 1995
Under the cover of the civil war in Bosnia in the 1990s Bosnian Serb troops were ordered by their political leaders to force Bosnian Muslims out of areas they wanted. This culminated in genocide with the murder of 8,372 men and boys at Srebrenica.
Cambodia 1975-79
In 1975 a radical leader called Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge followers seized power in Cambodia. They launched a brutal attack on ethnic minorities and religious people as well as other civilians. Around 2 million people were murdered.
Darfur 2003—Present
Darfur is a part of Sudan with a mixed population of black Africans & Arabs. The Sudanese government has used an Arab militia group called the Janjaweed to launch a genocidal campaign that has killed thousands.
Rwanda 1994
In 1994 an extreme ’Hutu power’ government sought to wipe out the minroty Tutsi group in Rwanda. In 100 days more than a million people were murdered.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
