11 minute read
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.
Lemkin knew that he had to leave Poland, and probably Europe, to escape from the Nazis. One option he considered was to try to get to the USA via Belgium, Norway or Sweden. It was very difficult for Jews to travel to other countries in those times but Lemkin had well-connected friends who he could call upon. With the help of the lawyer and politician Karl Schlyter, Lemkin was able to get permission to travel to Sweden. As Schlyter was a judge and previously Minister of Justice he was able to have Lemkin admitted to the country. Schlyter had to guarantee that Lemkin’s living expenses would be covered the first six months and thus Lemkin was granted a visa to enter Sweden.4
Whilst he was in Sweden, Lemkin started to collect information on the atrocities that the Nazis were committing back in Poland. Again, he used his contacts – Swedish businessmen who he had got to know in the 1930s and who could travel quite freely around Poland at the time. We don’t know the names of the businessmen who helped Lemkin but he describes ‘friends in a Swedish corporation’ who had their offices in Nazi-occupied Poland and who would send him copies of official announcements and rules that the invaders imposed in Warsaw and beyond.
Lemkin makes it plain in his autobiography that he thought he would have been killed had he stayed in Poland. He was aware of atrocities being committed, but we cannot be sure if Lemkin was certain at the time that the Nazis wanted to destroy the Jewish people. However, there was enough information available at the time for Lemkin to work out what might be happening. He knew that the Jews were being forced into ghettos and to live in conditions that would be hard to survive. Lemkin probably understood what was about to happen when he wrote in his autobiography ‘as for the Jews, ominous signs pointed to their complete destruction in gradual steps.’5
Fortunately for Lemkin he knew people in the United States who could help with his escape from the Nazis. In 1936, while still working as a lawyer in Warsaw, Lemkin met Prof. Malcolm McDermott, who was a member of the law faculty at Duke University. Lemkin and McDermott became friends and they worked together on a book about law which was published by the professor’s university. So, when Lemkin was trying to flee Europe he got in touch with Professor McDermott who was able to quickly organized a shortterm job Duke University. This allowed Lemkin, by now a refugee, to get the necessary paperwork to emigrate to the United States. After travelling right across the Soviet Union from Sweden and then by boat to Japan and across the Pacific Ocean, Lemkin arrived in Seattle in the USA on 18th April 1941.
He quickly became accustomed to US life as he took up his post at the University, captivating many audiences with stories of his first-hand experience of wartime Europe. Shortly after arriving, Lemkin received a final letter from his parents. It read ‘We are well. We hope you are happy. We are thinking of you’.6 They were murdered at the end of 1942, alongside at least another 49 of Lemkin’s family who perished in the Holocaust.
In 1942 Lemkin moved to Washington DC, joining a part of the US government as an analyst and then working as an international law expert. Whilst doing his job he tried to tell those in higher positions in the government about the atrocities being perpetrated in Europe by the Nazis. Lemkin even wrote to the President, Franklin Roosevelt to suggest that the USA create an international treaty banning ‘barbarity’. Lemkin’s request was rejected.
Lemkin’s campaign now took a new turn. He wrote a book called ‘Axis Rule in Occupied Europe’, which was published in 1944. The seven hundred and twelve pages were full of legal arguments and documents…but the book also contained a new word in Chapter 7: ‘Genocide’. It was the first time that anyone would ever have read the term in print.
Keen to further his cause, Lemkin soon took up position as an advisor to the American legal team that was preparing for the trial of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg. Nevertheless, Lemkin was to be disappointed again:
‘genocide’ was not listed on the list of crimes included in the ‘Nuremberg Charter’. Undaunted, Lemkin battled on. Showing the tenacity and stubbornness that had been the hallmarks of his life, Raphael got himself to Europe from America, spoke to anyone who would listen to him and spoke to the press without the permission of his employers – the US government.7 All this managed to alienate his colleagues but it did advance his goal. On October 6 1945 ‘genocide’ was included on one of the indictments (an official accusation that says that a person will be tried for a crime) against the twenty four Nazi leaders. During this period, Lemkin learnt that tragically, 49 members of his family had died. They lost their lives in ghettos, concentration camps and death marches. This great loss perhaps fuelled his determination to have the term recognised in international law.
The judgements against the Nazi leaders came on 30 September and 1 October 1946. Lemkin was not in Nuremberg to hear them – he was ill in hospital in Paris and had to listen to what was going on in the court room on a radio next to his bed. He waited for a sign that the accused would be convicted of ‘genocide’. And he waited. There was no mention of the crime that Lemkin had worked so hard to have included in the trial. Lemkin was devastated by the silence and, later, admitted that that day was ‘the blackest day’ of his life.8
But Lemkin would not give up.
He lobbied relentlessly: he wrote articles, gave speeches, penned countless letters and telephoned everyone he could think of with the aim of getting the UN to agree to a document outlining the suitable recognition, prevention and punishment of genocide. This goal was achieved on the 9th of December 1948, when the UN adopted the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’, as drafted and initiated by Lemkin himself. Lemkin was so pleased that the United Nations had adopted the Genocide Convention. His words in his autobiography and the photographs of him after his triumph show how elated he was. Nevertheless, Lemkin probably knew that the Convention would not rid the world of the atrocities that he had campaigned against. Instead, he saw it as a warning to governments that might think about trying to destroy a particular group in their country: if you do commit the crime of genocide you will be punished.
Lemkin may also have wanted the Genocide Convention to cover more forms of ‘destruction’ and ‘groups’ than it actually did. He was interested in protecting a greater variety of groups from physical and cultural destruction (as he had shown with his ideas of crimes of ‘barbarity’ and ‘vandalism’ in the 1930s)…but politics got in the way. Not every country adopted the Genocide Convention and promised to obey it: Britain did not sign the Convention until 1970 and the USA only ratified it in 1988. Lemkin did not stop here, but instead continued to urge other countries and nations to adopt similar legislation supporting the Convention. The final chapter of Lemkin’s autobiography tells a sad story.9 The constant struggle had taken its toll on Lemkin: he was weak and living in desperate poverty. But still he worked to have more countries listen to his message and sign up to the Genocide Convention. As he writes of his constant lobbying of ambassadors and senators Lemkin also details how he has to borrow money from friends, how his landlord hammers on his door at midnight because he can’t pay the rent…and even how his clothes are confiscated because of unpaid bills. Raphael Lemkin died of a heart attack in 1959. He left behind an immense legacy.
Lemkin in Poland
When Lemkin was studying in Lviv he asked his professors why no one had been prosecuted for massacring Armenians in 1915. In the 1920s Lemkin thought about this more when was a lawyer in Warsaw. He came up with idea for laws banning the killing of human groups. He called this crime ‘barbarity’. When the Nazis invaded Lemkin had to flee.
Lemkin in Sweden
Lemkin was able to escape to Sweden. Whilst he was in Stockholm he began to collect information about what the Nazis were doing in the countries, like Poland, that they had occupied. Documents were smuggled out of Poland and given to Lemkin. He began to realise that the Nazis were intent on wiping out every single Jewish man, woman and child.
Lemkin at Duke University, USA
Lemkin continued his journey in 1941. He travelled from Sweden, through Russia, to Japan before eventually arriving at Duke University in North Carolina. Here he lectured and spoke to groups outside the university about his experiences in Europe. Whilst he may not have used the term "genocide" while at Duke, his stay helped him formulate his ideas.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Lemkin after Duke Lemkin and The Genocide Convention
Lemkin used his legal expertise to work for the US government after his time at Duke. Most importantly, in 1944, he published a book called ‘Axis Rule in Occupied Europe’ which mentioned the term ‘genocide’ for the first time. Lemkin spoke to everyone powerful person he could find to persuade them to make ‘Genocide’ a crime. He finally succeeded and, on December 9th 1948, the United Nations passed the ‘Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide’. It was a triumph for Lemkin.
Lemkin’s later years
Unfortunately Lemkin died of a heart attack in New York in 1959. He was only 59 years old. Right up until the end of his life Lemkin fought to make more countries take notice of the Genocide Convention.
