Raphael Lemkin: the ambassador of our conscience

Image: Center for Jewish History, NYC (CC) commons.wikimedia.org

It is characteristic that the man who initiated and successfully conveyed the message about genocide was an Eastern European. Lemkin was born probably on June 24th 1900 in present-day Belarus, in his family homestead near Grodno. He was Jewish and I believe it was his origin that brought him that much further in his international attempts to criminalise genocide. Despite his roots, there should be no surprise that a person with a “background” in Eastern Europe, someone aware of the tensions between peoples and flexible state boundaries, could add a missing piece to international law regarding the worst possible outcomes of hatred. In the very first page of his autobiography, Lemkin stated in regard to his homeland that “Poles, Russians (or rather Belarusians) and Jews have been living there for centuries. They did not like each other and even fought against themselves, but in spite of these arguments they were bound by the love for the cities, hills and rivers of their homeland. The feeling of the common fate stopped them from mutual destruction.”

Shaping future views

Lemkin described himself as a caring person who cared for the rights of both humans and animals. As a seven-year-old boy, he attempted to become a vegetarian. Once he found an injured owl, he built a nest for it, fed it and cared for it for almost one year. “I was happy that I can save someone’s life. I did not think that my care for the owl was an act inspired from the outside, this decision belonged to my inner self,” he wrote. This need of righteousness became his creed.  

Lemkin’s road to his legal work on genocide began a long time before the tragedy of the Holocaust. Since his childhood he had been encountering examples of local hostility against national and religious groups. He heard of pogroms against Jews in Białystok (1906) and the case of Menahem Mendel Beilis, who was accused of ritual murders (1911). With the German army entering his neighbourhood in 1915, he became more interested in historical studies dedicated to examples of the planned destruction of national, racial and religious groups. He was moved by the image of Christians murdered by Nero, as depicted poetically by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Quo Vadis.

Several years later, Lemkin learnt about the latest mass killings and persecution of Armenians at the hands of the Ottomans. The Turkish crimes of 1915 were the main trigger for Lemkin’s future views. He was shocked by the news that the British released 150 Turkish war criminals from their captivity in Malta, who then disappeared throughout the world. Lemkin asked, “Why do we sentence a man, who killed someone, but the destruction of millions is a lighter crime, than the single murder?”

He was deeply touched by the trial of Soghomon Tehlirian – an Armenian survivor of the massacres in the Ottoman Empire, who shot to death the former Turkish minister of interior, Talaat Pasha, in Berlin. He wrote that “Thanks to this trial the world finally noticed the true image of tragic events in Turkey. The same world that kept comfortably silent when Armenians were murdered and intended to hide this via releasing Turkish war criminals, had to listen to the terrible truth.” After the trial, which lasted just two days, a Berlin court did not sentence Tehlirian, claiming that he acted under “psychologic pressure”.

Another similar case that affected Lemkin’s perception of liability for genocide related to the assassination of Symon Petliura, the leader in exile of the Ukrainian People’s Republic. He was killed in Paris by Sholem Schwarzbard – a Jewish survivor from the Ukrainian pogroms of 1918 who claimed that he took his revenge for his family’s death. The man was not sentenced as well. Although the assassination could have been inspired by Soviet agents, Lemkin nevertheless referred to this case as another example of a lack of any legal instruments in the civilised world that could have prevented governments and individuals from annihilating nations, races and religious groups due to their characteristics.

Missed opportunity?

The most notable international event that influenced Lemkin took place before the Second World War in 1933. The Fifth International Conference for the Unification of Criminal Law was about to take place in Madrid within the framework of the League of Nations. “It was high time to establish a system of common security securing the lives of nations,” he stated in his autobiography, claiming he initiated it shortly after Hitler’s rise to power. Lemkin named two crimes – barbarism and vandalism – that he wished to discuss in the international environment. The first one referred to the annihilation of national or religious groups. The second also referred to the destruction of the cultural heritage of these groups, representing their spiritual values. Shortly before the conference, Lemkin spread the word about his plans, cultivating fertile ground for the discussions.

According to Lemkin, it was the justice minister of Poland, Czesław Michałowski, who cancelled Lemkin’s trip to Madrid for the conference. At that time, the right-wing press in Warsaw published articles opposing the lawyer’s ideas, which were supposedly “motivated by a need to protect Jews and Jews only”. It might be questionable the degree to which Lemkin’s ideas were opposed by the Polish government and what his absence at the conference meant. Yet, whatever the Polish government’s take, Lemkin was still appointed by Poland as a delegate to other international conferences. Despite his absence at the Madrid conference, the idea of genocide was put on the table for the first time thanks in large part to his earlier work. While the participants in Madrid did not vote against the idea of genocide, it was not seriously discussed either. In his paper titled “Genocide”, which was published in 1946 in American Scholar, Lemkin expressed concern that with the potential adoption of the law in 1933, “we would not now have had all the discussions about ex post facto law, in relation to crimes committed by the German government against its own citizens prior to this war”.

After the outbreak of the war, Lemkin managed to escape Poland. Thanks to Karl Schlyter, the Swedish minister of justice, he found shelter in Stockholm. “In the peaceful Stockholm library I was observing how an entire race is put in captivity and sentenced to death. The de-humanisation and disintegration has begun. When does the hour of execution come? Will the world notice what is going on only when it is already too late? The aid can come only from America, which was born due to moral outrage against oppression and many times acted in line with that feeling.”

During his stay in the north, Lemkin was studying historical similarities for the purpose of comparative genocide. Lemkin compared Nazi crimes with the Mongol invasion of 1241 that resulted in numerous crimes against Poles, Hungarians and Silesians. He argued that the “decimation of peoples of Poland, Hungary, Silesia and Russia was probably one of the most drastic examples of genocide”. At that time, he was worried about the West’s ability to unite against barbarity, just like in the 13th century when the Mongols were not stopped by Christendom. “I was wondering if the tragic division and lack of unity of the West can again occur facing this new barbarity,” Lemkin wrote in his autobiography.

Frustration and setbacks

In the spring of 1941 as an émigré from Poland, Lemkin managed to reach the United States, where he dedicated his life to the struggle for the adoption of the international convention on genocide. After being welcomed at Duke University in North Carolina in 1942, he was offered a job as chief consultant to the Board of Economic Warfare. While working in Washington DC, he was allowed to deliver to President Franklin D. Roosevelt a one-page note on the genocidal tendencies of the Axis powers.

“How could I sum up the pain of millions, the fear of nations, hope for salvation from death on just one page? I suggested the adoption of the treaty, that would acknowledge genocide as a crime, crime of crimes, and adopted by the states all over the world. Such a treaty could have taken the lives of nations out of the hands of politicians and secured them in hands of objective legal basis. A declaration, questioned later on as limited to the expression of hope only, seemed to me inadequate.”

In return, Lemkin received Roosevelt’s answer in which he asked for patience, claiming that the time is not right for adopting such a convention. The lawyer had become more and more desperate and frustrated, especially since the first reports on German crimes reached the Allies, writing that “Silence around the annihilation began, when in late 1942 the first reports on mass executions were delivered from Warsaw to London [by Jan Karski]. It lasted almost two years, until December 1944. No one admitted that the nation who granted to the world the faith in God, with His Bible read every Sunday in the churches of allied states, is being killed. It was a murder committed on truth: hiding the information of murder. In a way, it meant lack of respect for death, with its dignity in a natural life cycle.”

Lemkin could have fought only with his sharp pen. He focused on retrieving and translating official German acts of law: “as a lawyer I knew how important the official documents are for understanding the politics. I knew that only thanks to acts of law like decrees or regulations I can decode the intentions of the Nazi authorities. A decree was an objective and indisputable proof.”  

He eventually published his magnum opus, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in autumn 1944. The book had become his business card that he eventually handed out whenever he tried to attract the attention of the mightiest of the civilised world. The overview of the genocide issue and possible legal remedies introduced by Lemkin were not welcomed by such notable reviewers as Hersch Lauterpacht and Hans Kelsen. The ambitious author was given credit for his selection of sources, but not for his intellectual input.

One step closer

Lemkin achieved some results only in 1945 with the upcoming Nuremberg Trials. His first successful attempt to lobby for his idea was connected with the appointment of US Supreme Court Judge Robert Jackson as the American prosecutor before the International Military Tribunal. Lemkin got a job in the war crimes office of the US Department of War and this led to the inclusion of genocide within the indictment formulated on October 6th 1945. During the trial, Lemkin’s volume was quoted, but in the end genocide was not mentioned in the sentence. Under the impression of this failure, the Jewish lawyer focused on lobbying in the framework of the newly established United Nations.

In 1946, Lemkin battled for a UN General Assembly resolution that could lead to the adoption of a binding convention banning genocide. While opening the first session of the United Nations General Committee, he expected unanimity on the inclusion of the genocide issue on the agenda. Interestingly enough, the Soviet representative opposed this idea.

“I tried to understand why the Russian delegate on the session of the committee was repeating: eto ne nuzhno – it is unnecessary. There was no further explanation. They had to have something in mind. I tried to form a logical whole from my conversations with Russians – the judge and the prosecutor in Nuremberg. They listened to me then with interest, even with sympathy, but in regard to the genocide question no common ground was achieved. Yet in Nuremberg I heard rumours that after recapturing Crimea and Northern Caucasus the Russians found out that some of the locals collaborated with Germans, therefore executions and deportations to Siberia occurred. Was that the reason for the protest of the Russian delegation?”

Running among the delegations, persuading them alone without backup, Lemkin managed to reach a consensus, even achieving Soviet acceptance through contacts with Czechoslovak representatives. With Paul-Henri Spaak, the future father of European integration, chairing the session, the UN General Assembly accepted the inclusion of the genocide issue on its agenda. Shortly afterwards, the body adopted “Resolution 96”, which called for the adoption of the convention. It marked the beginning of two years of long struggle for the final embodiment of Lemkin’s dreams.

The persistent lawyer held many lectures in the framework of the United Nations. He provided examples of genocide from the ancient times till today. “In this way I let them realise that the genocide is not the outcome of the mood of one or another culprit, but the pattern repeated throughout the ages.” Asked about examples of genocide in the Far East, he explained the tragic story of 50,000 Roman Catholics killed in Japan in the 17th century.

But what actually did Lemkin try to include in the piece of legislation? He provided the answer in the paper “Genocide” from American Scholar. From the recent perspective, it is striking that while describing the essence of the term, he mentioned that so far any attempt to destroy a nation was called “de-nationalisation”. For the lawyer, this sinister term was nonetheless inadequate as it excluded biological destruction. Indeed, imposing culture was a step behind the genocide itself, something different as “Germanisation, Magyarisation or Italianisation did not lead to the annihilation of suppressed and subjected people”. Lemkin even referred to Hitler, who argued that Germanisation can in fact be related only to land, and not to the people.

Throughout his volumes, papers and addresses, the lawyer called for the supervision of the treatment of civilians during the war by international bodies like the International Red Cross. In this regard, Lemkin expected the amendment of the Hague Conventions. This idea was approved by Swedish Red Cross and Count Folke Bernadotte himself. Moreover, Lemkin insisted on providing preventive and punitive measures in times of both war and peace. He argued to broaden the scope of genocide to include not just death. He wished to penalise attacks against life, liberty or property of members of a particular group. Lemkin expected every country to modify its penal code in regard to the letter of the international convention. He wanted to make sure persons accused of genocide could not abuse the regime of extradition. As for him, both commanders and executioners should be responsible, along with members of governments and political bodies tolerating genocide. He also insisted on the inclusion of anti-genocide clauses in treaties that were to be signed with Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania.

Personal victory

Lemkin believed that genocide must be penalised both by domestic and international legislation, to make criminals also responsible before the International Court of Justice in The Hague or the Security Council of the United Nations. For him, the UN played a significant role, as the Charter provided the international protection of human rights, “indicating that the denial of such rights by any state is a matter of concern to all mankind”. He cared about the equal protection of all, writing that “Most of all we have to let other nations realise that minorities and weaker states are not chickens belonging to a farmer who can kill them whenever he wishes, but they are groups of people valuable for themselves and for the world’s civilisation.”

While discussing the scope of the genocide in the UN General Assembly, Lemkin recalled the Soviet delegate who wished to connect it with fascism and Nazism only. The majority of delegates disapproved of this view, as it could mean the term would refer only to the past. Political tensions led to the exclusion of political and social groups from the scope of the victims of genocide.

Nevertheless, Lemkin’s mission was fulfilled on December 9th 1948 in Paris, with the unanimous adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The famous Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted the next day. While comparing both documents, Lemkin stated that the difference between them is like between a date and marriage. His personal victory is unquestionable. But the text itself free of the background behind the convention turned out to be a bitter victory for the civilised world. Polish historian Piotr Madajczyk has claimed that the definition of genocide adopted by the UN was useless and vague as it relies on a compromise accomplished in the reality of the Cold War. The United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the US were reluctant to accept the text. Ambiguities in definitions were recalled by genocide researcher Kelly Maddox at Lancaster University, while proving the convention’s ineffectiveness in cases of massacres in Rwanda, Bosnia and Sudan.

Whatever the quality of this piece of the convention, it by no means could not prevent further massacres. In this regard, the accomplishment of Lemkin should be perceived more like the story of the persistent idealistic humanist who achieved a lot relying on his own work and skills. The lawyer from Eastern Europe strongly connected the biological destruction of peoples with the destruction of mankind’s heritage. He insisted on the connection of endangered peoples and their contribution to global legacy, writing that “Cultural considerations speak for international protection of national, religious and cultural groups. Our whole heritage is a product of the contributions of all nations. We can best understand this when we realise how impoverished our culture would be if the people doomed by Germany, such as the Jews, had not been permitted to create the Bible, or give birth to an Einstein, a Spinoza; if the Poles had not had the opportunity to give to the world a Copernicus, a Chopin, a Curie; the Czechs, a Huss, a Dvorak; the Greeks, a Plato and a Socrates; the Russians, a Tolstoy and a Shostakovich.” Beyond a shadow of the doubt these days Lemkin would have exceeded the hereinabove list by the names of gifted and influential Ukrainians.

Maybe this is the true greatness and legacy of Lemkin that should be praised over the letter or even the spirit of the law he inspired. The realisation that each group of people on earth enriches human civilisation in its own peculiar way and that every single man and woman should stand for everyone else with no exception, whatever the personal cost.  

Grzegorz Szymborski is a graduate of the College of Europe in Natolin (Poland) and the Faculty of Law and Administration at the University of Warsaw. He is also the author of books such as Wolność niejedno ma imię (2013), Wyprawa Fryderyka Augusta I do Inflant w latach 1700 – 1701 w świetle wojny domowej na Litwie (2015) and Działania zbrojne w Rzeczypospolitej podczas interwencji rosyjskiej 1764 roku (2020).

genocide, Germany, history, Poland, Rapheal Lemkin, Ukraine, War