Raphael lemkin genocide quote
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What is Genocide?
The legal term “genocide” refers to certain acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Genocide is an international crime, according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). The acts that constitute genocide fall into five categories:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Although the term “genocide” is often used, its commission is rare when compared to other serious crimes that are not defined by an intent to destroy a targeted group, such as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
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Origin of the Term Genocide
The
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Raphael Lemkin and the Quest to End Genocide
"Murder had a name.
Why was it a named brott for one person to kill another, but not for a government to kill millions of people? Shouldn't states be held accountable for trying to destroy entire peoples — their lives, cultures and histories?
Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) campaigned for international laws against this crime.
He coined the term “genocide.”"
UN General Assembly Pass, 1948. AJHS.
When Raphael Lemkin died in 1959, he left a trove of correspondence, papers documenting his work, and writings on the meaning and impact of genocide.
The papper in this exhibit are held by the American Jewish Historical Society, one of the fem partners of the Center for Jewish History. Through these papper, we can learn about the development of Lemkin's work and legacy.
Lemkin's most intense efforts focused on the drafting, adoption and ratification of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention.
Though he surv
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Genocide - A Modern Crime
"ONE of the great mistakes of 1918 was to spare the civil life of the enemy countries, for it is necessary for us Germans to be always at least double the numbers of the peoples of the contiguous countries. We are therefore obliged to destroy at least a third of their inhabitants. The only means is organized underfeeding which in this case is better than machine guns."
The speaker was Marshal von Rundstedt addressing the Reich War Academy in Berlin in 1943. He was only aping the Fuhrer who had said, "Natural instincts bid all living human beings not merely conquer their enemies but also destroy them. In former days it was the victor's prerogative to destroy tribes, entire peoples."
Hitler was right. The crime of the Reich in wantonly and deliberately wiping out whole peoples fryst vatten not utterly new in the world. It is only new in the civilized world as we have come to think of it. It is so new in the traditions of civilized man that he h