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Kilka uwag w związku z polskim wydaniem pracy Rafała Lemkina, Rządy państw Osi w okupowanej Europie

100%

Dębski S.

Sprawy Międzynarodowe

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2014

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issue 3

113-120

EN

The article has been written on the occasion of the first Polish edition of Rafał Lemkin’s classic: Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, the book which paved the way for the legal protection of entire nations threatened with annihilation for political reasons, often by their own state, and adoption by the UN, in December 1948, of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The author argues that an original contribution of Lemkin’s thinking to development of international and humanitarian law laid not only in his view that the civilised nations should condemn, prohibit and prevent any attempts of deliberate liquidation of an entire group of people as the “crime of crimes,” with which the mankind lost a chance to benefit from that group’s cultural and intellectual contributions in the future. But also it was Lemkin’s determination to collect evidence that made it possible to build logical reasoning corroborating the personal responsibility of Third Reich leaders, including Hitler, for the mass crimes committed by German state institutions in occupied European countries. Thus Axis Rule in Occupied Europe was the first attempt to prove responsibility of Nazi Germany for atrocities committed in occupied Europe through careful analysis of law and regulations introduced by the occupying powers.

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Jak ludobójstwo zostało uznane za zbrodnię − dziedzictwo Rafała Lemkina

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MCFARLAND S., HAMER K.

Civitas et Lex

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2016

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issue 2(10)

69-85

XX

Raphael Lemkin is hardly known to a Polish audiences. One of the most honored Poles of the XX century, forever revered in the history of human rights, nominated six times for the Nobel Peace Prize, Lemkin sacrificed his entire life to make a real change in the world: the creation of the term “genocide” and making it a crime under international law. How long was his struggle to establish what we now take as obvious, what we now take for granted? This paper offers his short biography, showing his long road from realizing that the killing one person was considered a murder but that under international law in 1930s the killing a million was not. Through coining the term “genocide” in 1944, he helped make genocide a criminal charge at the Nuremburg war crimes trials of Nazi leaders in late 1945, although there the crime of genocide did not cover killing whole tribes when committed on inhabitants of the same country nor when not during war. He next lobbied the new United Nations to adopt a resolution that genocide is a crime under international law, which it adopted on 11 December, 1946. Although not a U.N. delegate – he was “Totally Unofficial,” the title of his autobiography – Lemkin then led the U.N. in creating the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted 9 December, 1948. Until his death in 1958, Lemkin lobbied tirelessly to get other U.N. states to ratify the Convention. His legacy is that, as of 2015, 147 U.N. states have done so, 46 still on hold. His tomb inscription reads simply, “Dr. Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), Father of the Genocide Convention”. Without him the world as we know it, would not be possible.

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Polskie problemy z genocydem Rafała Lemkina

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Madajczyk P.

Dzieje Najnowsze

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2016

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vol. 48

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issue 1

PL

Polish Problems with Genocide According to Rafał LemkinRafał (Raphael) Lemkin is currently the best–known Polish lawyer, whose name appears invariably as a point of departure for international discussions about genocide. He is the author of The German New Order in Poland and in 1944 published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, containing the term: “genocide”. At the time of the Nuremberg Trial Lemkin acted as adviser to United States Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson. Subsequently, he worked on devising an act of law that would define the principles of penalising the crime of genocide. On 9 December 1948 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In Poland the revival of interest in Lemkin has its positive and negative sides. The former undoubtedly include changing or rather initiating an alteration of a situation embarrassing or outright insulting for Poland, namely, when Polish–language versions of the above–mentioned books about the Axis occupation were not available and Lemkin was not mentioned in assorted studies. The latter aspect involves his sui generis sacralisation and elevation, hindering a critical discussion about his achievements, since such a debate could be interpreted as questioning them. This article endeavours to examine the conception of genocide from the viewpoint of an historian, and reflects on the extent to which it could become an instrument of historical analysis.

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1 Civitas et Lex

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1 Dębski S.

1 HAMER K.

1 MCFARLAND S.

1 Madajczyk P.

Kilka uwag w związku z polskim wydaniem pracy Rafała Lemkina, Rządy państw Osi w okupowanej Europie

Jak ludobójstwo zostało uznane za zbrodnię − dziedzictwo Rafała Lemkina

Polskie problemy z genocydem Rafała Lemkina