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Home , Raphael Lemkin

Raphael Lemkin and the Convention: Living Legacy of a Lonely Lawyer A landmark conference explores Dr. Lemkin’s relentless work against genocide.

by AVIVA CANTOR

hen a journalist entered the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, adoption of the , partially destroyed home a national, ethnical, racial or religious which took place in December 1948. It in a Bosnian village, he saw group” (see box on p. 14). went into force in January 1951, when aW strange sight: There were three dead The Convention was unfortunately ratified by 20 nations, of which Israel old men slumped at the table, but there not employed to stop the atrocities in was the second. were five small coffee cups on it. What Bosnia. But it did provide the basis for It was only in 1988 that it was rati- had happened here? The old men were the creation of the International Crimi- fied by the , when Presi- having coffee late one morning. The nal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia dent Reagan signed it. By that time, door was flung open. Two young men (ICTY) in 1993, which indicted, arrested Lemkin was already dead and buried for burst in with submachine guns: Serbian and tried more than 155 Serbians, includ- close to 30 years. militiamen. The Muslim men welcomed ing two major perpetrators (see box on p. 15). In November 2009, a few months them — they were the sons of their The term genocide was coined, after his 50th yahrzeit, the Center for neighbors — and one of them got them conceptualized and defined by one man Jewish History (CJH) in Manhattan held cups of coffee and invited them to join who drafted the Convention text and a conference, “Genocide and Human Ex- them at the table. sacrificed his personal life and health perience: Raphael Lemkin’s Thought and The militiamen shot the old men to make it part of . His Vision.” Co-sponsored with the Ameri- dead. They left their coffee untouched. name was Dr. Raphael Lemkin. can Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) and This atrocity among so many others A lawyer by profession and multi- Yeshiva University Museum (YUM), it occurred during the Bosnia War of 1992- linguist by avocation who escaped Po- brought together a group of historians, 1995, when many Serbian actions were land at the beginning of , political scientists, jurists, anthropolo- considered genocide under the terms of Lemkin (1900-1959) lobbied tirelessly gists and philosophers from all over the the United Nations Convention on the inside and outside the U.N. for the world. The conference, organized by Prevention and Punishment of the Crime CJH director of Special Projects Judith of Genocide. The Convention (Article 2) defines genocide as any of five actions “committed with

12 Na’amat Woman SUMMER 2010 The term genocide was coined, conceptualized and

defined by one man who drafted the text of the U.N.

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the

Crime of Genocide and sacrificed his personal life

and health to make it part of international law.

Siegel, was accompanied by an exhibition, public prosecutor in . “Letters of Conscience: Raphael Lemkin In 1933, Lemkin, who had al- and the Quest to End Genocide.” ready grasped that the Nazis would inflict “unprecedented” atroci- Lemkin’s Life ties on ethnic minorities, wrote Raphael Lemkin was born on June 24, a paper for a ’ 1900 and raised on a farm 50 miles from international conference in Ma- Bialystok in czarist . His father, drid, proposing laws against the Raphael Lemkin’s War Department and Joseph, was a farmer; his mother, Bella obliteration of national, religious and ra- United Nations identification cards. Pomerantz, was an intellectual, artist cial groups and the destruction of their Raphael Lemkin Papers, American Jewish Historical Society, and student of philosophy who home- cultural works. The Polish government, , NY schooled him and was his greatest trying to cultivate/placate the Germans, childhood influence. When he was 6 refused to let him attend (his paper was Lemkin was in Nuremberg in 1946, years old, pogroms in the Bialystok re- read aloud but the proposal was tabled), working as an adviser on the staff of the gion involving fiendish mutilation ritu- and he was forced out of his job. chief prosecutor in the trials of Nazi als resulted in the murder of 70 Jews When World War II broke out in war criminals. He became greatly dis- and grave injuries to 90 others. September 1939, Lemkin fled Warsaw tressed that the term genocide was not At the age of 11, Lemkin read in and eventually found refuge in , used in the Final Judgment. Even more ’s Polish master- where he taught law at the University of significant to him, the Tribunal’s Char- piece about the Roman Empire, Quo Va- Stockholm. He persuaded the Foreign ter and Judgment specified that “acts dis, of the throwing of Christians to the Ministry to instruct consular officials to committed before the outbreak of the lions, and later, accounts of massacres provide documentation of German or- War were not punishable offenses.” He of the Carthaginians and the French ders of mass murders in countries they was disturbed that these documents en- Huguenots. He asked his mother why occupied. shrined the principle that what a gov- there is no law against killing “defense- This material formed the basis of ernment does to its own citizens does less people just because they are differ- his 712-page book, Axis Rule in Occupied not fall under international law. Lemkin ent from you.” She told him he must Europe (see box on p. 15), the first all- was unhappy about this as precedent, “study more and think more and find encompassing work on the enormity said William A. Schabas of the Irish the answer for yourself.” He resolved to of Nazi brutality and destruction. Pub- Center for Human Rights at the Na- look for answers. lished in the U.S. in 1944, it was also the tional University of Ireland, “because Lemkin entered the John Casimir first work in which Lemkin both used he looked to the future.” University of Lvov in 1920, planning to the word “genocide” he had coined and The Final Judgment was rendered in major in philology. He already knew sev- wrote of the need for an international October, after a summer in which Lem- en languages; he later added three more. treaty to prevent its recurrence. kin traveled in Europe and met people in A professor, in response to Lemkin’s By this time, Lemkin had made his DP camps, including former colleagues, question about the slaughter of 1.5 mil- way to the U.S. to teach law at Duke and heard their horrific stories. In Sep- lion Armenians during , told University in and work tember, his distress worsened when he him that international law precludes in- for government agencies in Washington found out that 49 members of his fam- terference in the sovereign affairs of a D.C. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get of- ily, including his parents, had been mur- country. The young student began to ficials — including President Roosevelt dered, wrote the late William Korey, think that a law to stop the murder of a and Vice President Wallace — interested former director of International Policy group must be created, and switched his in taking action against the mass mur- Research of B’nai B’rith. “The death of field to law. He subsequently became a ders of European Jews. his beloved mother who had played such

SUMMER 2010 Na’amat Woman 13 Lemkin tried, unsuccessfully, to get officials — including President Roosevelt

and Vice President Wallace — interested in taking action against the

mass murder of European Jews.

a key role in his early life was especially two large battered briefcases from del- them of their history” and results in shattering” to him, said independent egate to delegate. their “spiritual death.” researcher Jim Fussell, who is writing a He succeeded in getting enough After the GA voted to adopt the biography of Lemkin. delegates to sponsor a resolution to de- Convention in December 1948, it still The Nuremberg Judgment, Lem- clare genocide an international crime had to be ratified by 20 states to go into kin later wrote in his incomplete and and to instruct a U.N. body to draw up force. Lemkin, after being hospitalized unpublished Totally Unofficial: The Au- a draft of a convention for the next GA again, leaped once more into his “lone- tobiography of Dr. Raphael Lemkin, was session. In the course of a six-week pe- ly crusade,” wrote Korey, and lobbied “the blackest day” of his life. It com- riod, he successfully lobbied all the del- without respite at the U.N. He had to pounded the trauma of his parents’ and egates to get the resolution passed. On borrow money for food and often went relatives’ murders, and left Lemkin in appointment by the secretary-general, hungry. He could hardly stand on his “extreme psychic pain,” said Schabas. Lemkin did the major drafting of the feet at Lake Success and “had to look He developed dangerously high fever Convention, during which time he took for support of a wall or a seat.” and high blood pressure. a leave from his teaching job at Yale Because of Lemkin’s unrelenting He checked himself out of the hos- University Law School. advocacy — facilitated by his being pital after hearing on the radio that the Prof. Alexander Laban Hinton of well-versed in the languages, traditions first agenda of the General Assembly Rutgers University told the conference and concerns of many nations — the (GA) was being prepared and would be that mass murders of a social class would Genocide Convention was ratified by finalized in five days’ time. He rushed to be considered genocide under the Con- 27 states and went into force on January New York to initiate work on getting his vention. But the final text, which under- 12, 1951, which he called “a day of tri- idea of a Genocide Convention trans- went tortuous political wrangling, did umph for mankind and the most beau- lated into reality. The next four years not include political or economic groups. tiful day of my life.” Since then, 140 were a period in which “the idea of one Nor did it include cultural geno- countries have signed on. man became an international treaty,” cide — a provision that both the U.S. Lemkin then worked on getting said Fussell. Lemkin later wrote that “he and the U.S.S.R. opposed. The inclusion more ratifications of the Convention; found temporary relief from my grief in of what Lemkin called “the destruction he feared that without U.S. ratification, this work” and “transformed my person- of cultural memory” was dear to his the Convention might share the fate al disaster into a moral striking force.” heart. He considered it a crime against of the League of Nations. His efforts Lemkin, Fussell said, underwent a civilization, which “results in the loss of failed due to the revival of the power of “complete transformation” in 1946 from [a group’s] future contribution to the the right wing, which accelerated when a man with many interests and friends world.” Hinton defined cultural geno- the Korean War speeded up the accep- to one who was single-minded, and gave cide as the systematic and organized tance of its nativism, xenophobia, iso- up his personal life. Diplomats and U.N. destruction of the art and cultural heri- lationism and anti-Communism. Fear correspondents, whom Lemkin lobbied tage in which the “unique genius” of a of the loss of American sovereignty — unremittingly, later remembered him as people is revealed, and of the cultural opening the country to international a slightly stooped figure scurrying with pattern of a group, which “must remind scrutiny — was used as an argument by

Main provisions of the “Convention on the Prevention Article 3: Actionable crimes: genocide; attempts, conspiracy and and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” incitement to commit it; and complicity in genocide. Article 2: Lists five actions committed with intent to destroy a group: Article 6: Persons charged with genocide shall be tried by a country’s killing its members, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, tribunal or by an “international tribunal” with jurisdiction in inflicting on it conditions of life calculated to bring about its countries which have accepted it. physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures to Artitcle 8: Any signer may call upon any U.N. organ to take “prevent births” within it; and “forcibly transferring children to appropriate action under its Charter for “the prevention and another group.” suppression of acts of genocide” or any acts listed.

14 Na’amat Woman SUMMER 2010 Major international treaties and prosecution since 1951 genocide. One of the eight senior officials on trial was convicted • International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), of organizing the systematic rape of Tutsi women, which the the first such special tribunal, was established in May 1993 at The court found to constitute the genocidal act of “causing serious Hague. The ICTY arrested Slobodan Milosevic, president of Serbia bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” The judge ruled and Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and charged him with 66 counts of that “sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of crimes, including genocide, in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo (he destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic died in 2006, during the trial). The ICTY also arrested Radovan and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting Karadzic, president of Republika Srpska (Serb enclave in Bosnia), the specific intent required for those actions to constitute and indicted him in 2009 on charges of genocide in organizing the genocide.” 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Moslem civilians in Srebrenica, • The International Criminal Court (ICC) became a permanent and of Croat civilians. His trial began and was postponed and tribunal in July 2002, aiming to prosecute individuals for genocide resumed in 2010. and other crimes. As of fall 2009, it has received 2,889 complaints • International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established about crimes in at least 139 countries and dismissed those in 1994 after the Hutu massacre of 800,000 Tutsis. Major testimony all but Uganda, Congo and Central African Republic, for most of was given by Canadian Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, chief of the which the perpetrators charged are still at large. An ICC prosecutor U.N. Mission there, who, to his intense pain, was unsuccessful initiated an effort in January 2010 to charge Sudan president Omar in his unrelenting efforts to bring about intervention to stop the Hassan al-Bashir with genocide.

Find Out More southern (white) senators who feared Lemkin’s Legacy Reading that the Convention might be used to “The history of the 20th century re- John Cooper: Raphael Lemkin and the target the treatment of blacks, who were quired Lemkin’s imagination to de- Struggle for the Genocide Convention” escalating their struggle for civil rights scribe [group] rights,” said Prof. Berel (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) amid lynchings and other atrocities. Lang of Wesleyan University, who Daniel Goldhagen: Worse Than War: After 1951, Lemkin was largely ig- traced the expansion of the idea of hu- Genocide, Eliminationism, and the nored and then forgotten, though he man rights from individual rights — ad- Ongoing Assault on Humanity (Public was nominated for the Nobel Peace vocated during the 18th-century Euro- Affairs, 2009) Prize five times in the 1950s. He kept pean Enlightenment — to its extension, William Korey: An Epitaph for Raphael on writing, but no publisher would issue derived largely from Lemkin’s views and Lemkin (American Jewish Committee, his books, including his three-volume work, to group rights. The problem, he 2009) History of Genocide and his Introduction to continued, lies with who decides what Raphael Lemkin: Axis Rule in Occupied the Study of Genocide (its publication by these rights are and what if one group’s Europe (Carnegie Endowment for Lexington Books is anticipated). These, rights conflict with another’s or with International Peace, 1944; reprinted, his memoir and other papers are locat- individuals. He emphasized that it is with additional material by Samantha ed at the AJHS, American Jewish Ar- crucially important not to misuse the Power and , by Law chives at Hebrew Union College-Jewish word genocide, which he defined as the Books Exchange, 2005) Institute of Religion in Cincinnati and violation of a group’s right to existence : : the New York Public Library, whose ex- inside and outside a nation, no matter America and the Age of Genocide president, Vartan Gregorian, opened who was responsible. (Basic Books, 2002) the conference. Prof. Benjamin Valentino of Dart- Lemkin had no money except the mouth College said that debate con- Viewing $100 a month the Jewish Labor Com- tinues to rage among scholars, interna- Christiane Amanpour: “Scream Bloody mittee gave him, and a tiny one-time tional lawyers and jurists as to whether Murder” (2008) — world’s failure grant from the Conference on Jewish a specific event constitutes genocide to prevent or stop , Material Claims Against . Ill because most people believe that us- from Armenia to Darfur — CNN and in dire poverty, Lemkin collapsed ing that word “implies a clear moral documentary and died of a heart attack on Aug. 28, judgment” and a “clear obligation to do Daniel Goldhagen: “Worse Than War” — 1959. Immediately after his death, the something”; Lemkin saw the word in PBS documentary landlord ordered his friends to clear out these terms. Therefore, he continued, Lemkin conference: proceedings, dates, his one-room apartment near Columbia “the stakes are high.” speakers’ biographies; links to University, which was piled high with The speakers were united in favor- his papers; companion programs; books and papers. The American Jewish ing intervention but differed on what exhibition: cjh.org/lemkin Committee paid for his burial at the Mt. kind of intervention — military politi- The United Nations Casebook, Hebron Cemetery in Queens. Seven cal, economic — and by whom. “Genocide,” CBS, 1949 people attended his graveside funeral. continued on page 25

SUMMER 2010 Na’amat Woman 15 Genocide century, humanitarian groups began to slavia. In 1997, it established another ad continued from page 15 protest and/or provide proactive assis- hoc tribunal on Rwanda. In 2002, act- tance to victims of human rights atroci- ing on Article 6, the U.N. founded the Prof. Lawrence Woocher of the ties. Some examples: the assistance to International Criminal Court. China, Center for Conflict Analysis and Pre- the Irish during the potato famine; the Israel, Russia, Sudan and the U.S. have vention of the U.S. Institute of Peace Congo Reform Association brought not joined it (see box on p. 15). stressed that while ”economic shock” the atrocities in that Belgian colony to Lemkin never received a Nobel could “trigger the need for a scapegoat,” international attention after reports Peace Prize for his pioneering work, and environmental-economic stress even before 1900 called it a “slave which he so richly deserved; efforts could activate group conflict, genocide state,” said Prof. Benedict Kiernan of should begin for a posthumous one. is not a “spontaneous event” but one . Nowhere at the U.N. is there a bust of that is organized by a leadership clique. NGO influence continued to grow Lemkin, nor is any street named after To sustain the atrocities, the clique and had a major impact on the adoption him near the Secretariat building or needs economic means — which enable of the Genocide Convention in 1948 by elsewhere in New York or Washing- it to provide arms and other materiel to the U.N. The Committee for an Interna- ton. The only monument to him is his low-level perpetrators — and, therefore, tional Genocide Convention established tombstone, which reads, “Father of the disrupting them might be effective. by the National Council of Christians Genocide Convention.” All the speakers on the topic of in- and Jews — with Lemkin as its theorist Over 60 years after the adoption of tervention agreed with Woocher that it and strategist — submitted a petition the Convention he created and champi- must take place at an early stage. This to the U.N. with signatures by leaders oned, “our world is not a world free of was also the basis of the proposal by au- of 166 NGOs from 28 countries with genocide,” said Bosnian Muhamed Me- thor Prof. Daniel Goldhagen, speaking memberships of over 200 million people sic of the Brainswork Institute, a think after screening a preliminary version of in September 1948. Three months later, tank in Vienna. (Egregious examples are his powerful film for PBS, “Worse Than the Convention was adopted. the genocides in Congo and Darfur.) War.” He suggested the creation of a Ruth Messinger, president of Amer- Nevertheless, the small but palpable “dedicated organization of democratic ican Jewish World Service and a speaker advances of the tribunals and courts nations to craft prevention, intervention at one of the CJH’s companion pro- demonstrate that, to use Mesic’s words, and justice” in cases of genocide. The new grams that followed the conference, said Lemkin’s “larger-than-life legacy is grow- organization, Goldhagen said, must be that NGOs’ work is “helpful” with work ing over time.” capable of “identifying when a genocide in education and advocacy, but acknowl- Lemkin’s work is “proof that one begins,” and must trigger measures “to edged that “we haven’t gotten responses man can make a difference,” Messinger activate an anti-genocide system” because from governments that we would like to said. Lemkin made the world conscious “waiting a few days is a catastrophe.” see. It’s slow-going.” that there is such a mega-crime as geno- Prof. Donna-Lee Frieze of Dea- Regarding the sluggish pace of the cide and that the international commu- kin University in Melbourne told the evolution of international law, Schabas nity is responsible for making sure it conference that “genocidal cultural de- emphasized that it “moves forward in does not continue to be perpetrated. struction” (a term she prefers to cultural spurts of activity” such as those during He created a workable instrument for genocide) is usually the “first phase” of and after the 1915-1919 Armenian geno- nations to do so. With this conscious- genocide. The murder of a group’s intel- cide, the Nuremberg Trials, the adop- ness and with this instrument and oth- lectual leaders and the destruction of its tion of the Genocide Convention, and ers it inspires and motivates, the inter- cultural symbols (art, buildings, monu- the creation of international tribunals national community may possibly be ments, books) are designed to render in the 1990s. able one day to overcome power poli- the group “defenseless” against physical It took 42 years from the time the tics, indifference and inertia to rid the attack, and constitute “evidence of in- U.N. adopted the Genocide Convention world of genocide. The world may yet tent to destroy” it. Prof. Peter Balakian for it to take any action on genocide. fulfill the inspiring vision of the lonely of Colgate University described these Most of those years were those lawyer, linguist and humanitarian pio- atrocities in Armenia. of the Cold War, when action was im- neer Dr. Raphael Lemkin. peded because the U.S. was “lukewarm” Factors Contributing to attempts to prosecute genocide, said to Intervention Schabas. But “building on Lemkin’s Aviva Cantor, the initiator of Lilith Speakers at the CJH conference dis- great and detailed work,” said Messing- magazine, is the author of Jewish Women, cussed two important social and histori- er, is going on. Jewish Men: The Legacy of Patriarchy cal factors in the evolution of thought In 1993, drawing on Article 8, ac- in Jewish Life,” a feminist exploration and action on intervention in cases of cording to which any signing party of Jewish history, culture and psychology genocide: the increasing influence of non- could authorize a U.N. body to take up (HarperCollins, 1995) and The Egalitar- governmental organizations (NGOs) and a case of genocide, the Security Coun- ian Hagada.© Copyright Aviva Cantor the development of international law. cil established the ad hoc International 2010. All Rights Reserved. Cantor can be From the latter part of the 19th Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo- reached at [email protected].

SUMMER 2010 Na’amat Woman 25