Raphael Lemkin

Lemkin was born Rafał Lemkin on 24 June 1900 in Bezwodne, a village in the Volkovyssky Uyezd of the Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire (present-day Belarus).{{sfn|Kornat|2010|p=55}}{{cite book|last1=Dan|first1=Stone|title=The Historiography of Genocide|date=2008|publisher=Palgrave MacMillan|page=10}}{{refn|When Lemkin was born, the town was part of the Russian Empire. During the Interwar period it was located in Poland. In 1939, it was transferred to Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and has been part of independent Belarus since 1991.|group="Note"}} He grew up in a Polish Jewish family on a large farm near Wolkowysk and was one of three children born to Józef Lemkin and Bella née Pomeranz.{{sfn|Kornat|2010|p=55}}{{sfn|Power|2002|p=20}} His father was a farmer and his mother an intellectual, painter, linguist, and philosophy student with a large collection of books on literature and history.{{sfn|Szawłowski|2005|p=102}} Lemkin and his two brothers (Eliasz and Samuel) were homeschooled by their mother.{{sfn|Kornat|2010|p=55}}

As a youth, Lemkin was fascinated by the subject of atrocities and would often question his mother about such events as the Sack of Carthage, Mongol invasions and conquests and the persecution of Huguenots.{{sfn|Power|2002|p=20}}{{sfn|Schaller|Zimmerer|2009|p=29}} Lemkin apparently came across the concept of mass atrocities while, at the age of 12, reading Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, in particular the passage where Nero threw Christians to the lions.{{sfn|Schaller|Zimmerer|2009|p=29}} About these stories, Lemkin wrote, "a line of blood led from the Roman arena through the gallows of France to the Białystok pogrom." In his writings, Lemkin demonstrated a belief central to his thinking throughout his life: the suffering of Jews in eastern Poland was part of a larger pattern of injustice and violence that stretched back through history and around the world.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p.24

The Lemkin family farm was located in an area in which fighting between Russian and German troops occurred during World War I.{{sfn|Power|2002|p=21}} The family buried their books and valuables before taking shelter in a nearby forest.{{sfn|Power|2002|p=21}} During the fighting, artillery fire destroyed their home and German troops seized their crops, horses and livestock.{{sfn|Power|2002|p=21}} Lemkin's brother Samuel eventually died of pneumonia and malnutrition while the family remained in the forest.{{sfn|Power|2002|p=21}}

After graduating from a local trade school in Białystok Lemkin began the study of linguistics at the Jan Kazimierz University of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine). He was a polyglot, fluent in nine languages and reading fourteen.{{cite web|url=http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/youth-outreach/peace-heroes/lemkin-raphael.htm|title=NAPF Programs: Youth Outreach: Peace Heroes: Raphael Lemkin, by Holly A. Lukasiewicz|date=10 February 2005|access-date=30 April 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050210085603/http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/youth-outreach/peace-heroes/lemkin-raphael.htm|archive-date=10 February 2005}} His first published book was a 1926 translation of the Hayim Nahman Bialik Hebrew novella "Behind the Fence"{{Cite journal |last=Yudkin |first=Leon I. |date=2001 |editor-last=Bialik |editor-first=Hayim Nahman |editor2-last=Patterson |editor2-first=David |editor3-last=Spicehandler |editor3-first=Ezra |title=Bialik's Prose, and His Poetry Too |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27913552 |journal=Hebrew Studies |volume=42 |pages=299–313 |jstor=27913552 |issn=0146-4094}} into Polish, with the title Noah and Marinka.Fogel, Joshua.[http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2015/01/khayim-nakhmen-byalik-chaim-nachman.html?m=1 "Khayim-Nakhmen Byalik (Chaim Nachman, Hayim Nahman Bialik)"]. Yiddish Leksikon. Quote: "Noyekh un marinke (Noah and Marinka) (Warsaw, 1921)". Posted 7 January 2015, accessed 10 July 2022.{{cite book|last1=Sands|first1=Phillipe|title=East West Street|date=2016|publisher=Penguin Randomhouse}} It was in Białystok that Lemkin became interested in laws against mass atrocities after learning about the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire,Yair Auron. [https://books.google.com/books?id=lQDIz5nZv0gC&q=The+Banality+of+Denial The Banality of Denial: Israel and the Armenian Genocide]. — Transaction Publishers, 2004. — p. 9:

...when Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide in 1944 he cited the 1915 annihilation of Armenians as a seminal example of genocide"

After reading about the 1921 assassination of Talat Pasha, the main perpetrator of the Armenian genocide, in Berlin by Soghomon Tehlirian, Lemkin asked Professor {{Ill|Juliusz Makarewicz|pl|Juliusz Makarewicz (prawnik)}} why Talat Pasha could not have been tried for his crimes in a German court. Makarewicz, a national-conservative who believed that Jews and Ukrainians should be expelled from Poland if they refused to assimilate, answered that the doctrine of state sovereignty gave governments the right to conduct internal affairs as they saw fit: "Consider the case of a farmer who owns a flock of chickens. He kills them, and this is his business. If you interfere, you are trespassing." Lemkin replied, "But the Armenians are not chickens". His eventual conclusion was that "Sovereignty, I argued, cannot be conceived as the right to kill millions of innocent people".{{cite book |last1=Irvin-Erickson |first1=Douglas|author-link=Douglas Irvin-Erickson |title=Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide |date=2016 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-9341-8 |language=en |pages=36–37}}{{cite book|last=Ihrig|first=Stefan|author-link=Stefan Ihrig|date=2016|title=Justifying Genocide: Germany and the Armenians from Bismarck to Hitler|title-link=Justifying Genocide|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-50479-0|page=371}}

Lemkin then moved on to Heidelberg University in Germany to study philosophy, returning to Lwów to study law in 1926.{{cn|date=January 2021}}

During the 1920s, Lemkin was involved in Zionist activities. He was a columnist in the Warsaw-based Yiddish Zionist newspaper Tsienistishe velt (The Zionist world).{{Cite journal |last=Loeffler |first=James |date=2017-07-03 |title=Becoming Cleopatra: the forgotten Zionism of Raphael Lemkin |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2017.1349645 |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |language=en |volume=19 |issue=3 |pages=340–360 |doi=10.1080/14623528.2017.1349645 |issn=1462-3528}}{{Cite book |last=Madajczyk |first=Piotr |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hZ7WEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT68 |title=The Biographical Landscapes of Raphael Lemkin |date=2023 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-99009-6 |page=68 |language=en}} Some scholars think that his Zionism had an influence on his conception of the idea of genocide, but there is a debate about the nature of this influence.{{Citation |last=Moses |first=A. Dirk |title=The Many Types of Destruction |date=2021 |work=The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression |pages=169–200 |editor-last= |editor-first= |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/problems-of-genocide/many-types-of-destruction/0C2D5A99FDE59DC3912A148C23A7678E |access-date= |series=Human Rights in History |place= |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-10358-0}}{{Cite book |last=Moses |first=A. Dirk |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BTQTEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA152 |title=The Problems of Genocide: Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression |date=2021 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-10358-0 |page=140 |language=en |chapter=Raphael Lemkin and the Protection of Small Nations}}{{Cite web |last1=Bartov, Omer |author-link=Omer Bartov |last2=Moses, Direk |author-link2=A. Dirk Moses |last3=Loeffler, James |author-link3=James Loeffler |date=2022-02-03 |title=Discussion: Revision to Genocide |url=https://hazmanhazeh.org.il/genocide/ |access-date=2024-06-23 |website=HaZman HaZe (This Time) |publisher=Van Leer Jerusalem Institute |language=he-IL}}

File:Rafal Lemkin plaque PISM.jpg, Poland]]

Lemkin worked as an Assistant Prosecutor in the District Court of Brzeżany (since 1945 Berezhany, Ukraine) and Warsaw, followed by a private legal practice in Warsaw.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p.69 From 1929 to 1934, Lemkin was the Public Prosecutor for the district court of Warsaw. In 1930 he was promoted to Deputy Prosecutor in a local court in Brzeżany. While Public Prosecutor, Lemkin was also secretary of the Committee on Codification of the Laws of the Republic of Poland, which codified the penal codes of Poland. During this period Lemkin also taught law at the religious-Zionist Tachkemoni College in Warsaw, and took part in Zionist fund raising. Lemkin, working with Duke University law professor Malcolm McDermott, translated The Polish Penal Code of 1932 from Polish to English.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In 1933 Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid, for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity as a crime against international law. In 1934 Lemkin, under pressure from the Polish Foreign Minister for comments made at the Madrid conference, resigned his position and became a private solicitor in Warsaw. While in Warsaw, Lemkin attended numerous lectures organized by the Free Polish University, including the classes of Emil Stanisław Rappaport and {{Ill|Wacław Makowski|pl|Wacław Makowski}}.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

In 1937, Lemkin was appointed a member of the Polish mission to the 4th Congress on Criminal Law in Paris, where he also introduced the possibility of defending peace through criminal law. Among the most important of his works of that period are a compendium of Polish criminal fiscal law, {{lang|pl|Prawo karne skarbowe}} (1938) and a French-language work, {{lang|fr|La réglementation des paiements internationaux}}, regarding international trade law (1939).{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

He left Warsaw on 6 September 1939 and made his way north-east towards Wolkowysk. He was caught between the invaders, the Germans in the west, and the Soviets who then approached from the east. Poland's independence was extinguished by terms of the pact between Stalin and Hitler.Philippe Sands, East West Street, p. 159 He barely evaded German capture, and traveled through Lithuania to reach Sweden by early spring of 1940.Paul R. Bartrop. Modern Genocide: The Definitive Resource and Document Collection. Vol. I. ABC-CLIO. 2014. pp. 1301–1302. There he lectured at the Stockholm University. Curious about the manner of imposition of Nazi rule he started to gather Nazi decrees and ordinances, believing official documents often reflected underlying objectives without stating them explicitly. He spent much time in the central library of Stockholm, gathering, translating and analysing the documents he collected, looking for patterns of German behaviour. Lemkin's work led him to see the wholesale destruction of the nations over which Germans took control as an overall aim. Some documents Lemkin analysed had been signed by Hitler, implementing ideas of Mein Kampf on Lebensraum, new living space to be inhabited by Germans.Sands, p.165 With the help of his pre-war associate McDermott, Lemkin received permission to enter{{cite book |last1=Sands |first1=Philippe |author-link=Philippe Sands |title=East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity" |chapter=69 |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |date=27 May 2016 |page=169 |isbn=978-0-385-35071-6}} the United States, arriving in 1941.

Although he managed to save his own life, he lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust; The only members of Lemkin's family in Europe who survived the Holocaust were his brother, Elias, and his brother's wife and two sons, who had been sent to a Soviet forced labor camp. Lemkin did however successfully help his brother and family to emigrate to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1948.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}

File:ICRC-Library RaphaelLemkin-DedicationTo MaxHuber.jpg, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross]]

After arriving in the United States, at the invitation of McDermott, Lemkin joined the law faculty at Duke University in North Carolina in 1941.For more information on this period, see {{cite web|last=Bliwise|first=Robert|title=The Man Who Criminalized Genocide|url=http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/article/man-who-criminalized-genocide|publisher=Duke Magazine|access-date=11 January 2014}} During the Summer of 1942 Lemkin lectured at the School of Military Government at the University of Virginia. He also wrote Military Government in Europe, a preliminary version of what would become, in two years, his magnum opus, entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. In 1943 Lemkin was appointed consultant to the US Board of Economic Warfare and Foreign Economic Administration and later became a special adviser on foreign affairs to the War Department, largely due to his expertise in international law.{{cite web |title=Coining a Word and Championing a Cause: The Story of Raphael Lemkin |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/coining-a-word-and-championing-a-cause-the-story-of-raphael-lemkin |accessdate=23 September 2021 |website=Holocaust Encyclopedia |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum}}

In November 1944, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. This book included an extensive legal analysis of German rule in countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the course of World War II, along with the definition of the term genocide.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y0in2wOY-W0C|title=Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation – Analysis of Government – Proposals for Redress|last=Lemkin|first=Raphael|publisher=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Division of International Law|year=1944|isbn=9781584779018|location=700 Jackson Place, N. W. Washington, D.C.|pages=79–95|chapter=IX: Genocide—A New Term and New Conception for Destruction of Nations|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y0in2wOY-W0C&pg=PA79|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190829032232/http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm|archive-date=29 August 2019|url-status=live}} Lemkin's idea of genocide as an offence against international law was widely accepted by the international community and was one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trials. In 1945 to 1946, Lemkin became an advisor to Supreme Court of the United States Justice and Nuremberg Trial chief counsel Robert H. Jackson. The book became one of the foundational texts in Holocaust studies, and the study of totalitarianism, mass violence, and genocide studies.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p.112

File:The Genocide Word by Raphael Lemkin.ogv)]]

After the war, Lemkin chose to remain in the United States. Starting in 1948, he gave lectures on criminal law at Yale University. In 1955, he became a Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law in Newark.{{cite book |last1=Irvin-Erickson |first1=Douglas |title=THE LIFE AND WORKS OF RAPHAEL LEMKIN: A POLITICAL HISTORY OF GENOCIDE IN THEORY AND LAW |date=October 2014 |publisher=Rutgers University |pages=363 |url=https://rucore.libraries.rutgers.edu/rutgers-lib/45631/PDF/1/play |access-date=28 October 2021 |format=Dissertation}} Lemkin also continued his campaign for international laws defining and forbidding genocide, which he had championed ever since the Madrid conference of 1933. He proposed a similar ban on crimes against humanity during the Paris Peace Conference of 1945, but his proposal was turned down.Eshet (2007).

Lemkin presented a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention treaty to a number of countries, in an effort to persuade them to sponsor the resolution. With the support of the United States, the resolution was placed before the General Assembly for consideration. Among his supporters at the UN there were the delegates of Lebanon, and Lemkin is said to have considered Karim Azkoul in particular as an ally.{{Cite web |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/5070/chapter-abstract/147627007 |access-date=2024-11-03 |website=academic.oup.com|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199660285.003.0008 |title=The Genocide Convention: The Gutting of Preventative Measures, 1946–48 |date=2014 |last1=Lewis |first1=Mark A. |pages=181–228 |isbn=978-0-19-966028-5 }} The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was formally presented and adopted on 9 December 1948.{{cite journal |last=Winter |first=Jay |title=Citation The Genesis Of Genocide |journal=MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History |volume=29 |issue=3 |page= 19 |publisher=History.Net |location=Vienna, Virginia |year=2017 }} In 1951, Lemkin only partially achieved his goal when the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into force, after the 20th nation had ratified the treaty.{{Cite web|url=https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml|title=United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect|website=www.un.org}}

Lemkin's broader concerns over genocide, as set out in his Axis Rule,{{cite web|url=http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm|title=Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, Chapter IX: Genocide, by Raphael Lemkin, 1944 – – Prevent Genocide International|first=Jim|last=Fussell|access-date=30 April 2017}} also embraced what may be considered as non-physical, namely, psychological acts of genocide. The book also detailed the various techniques which had been employed to achieve genocide.{{cite web|url=http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-2.htm|title=Sec. II of Chap. IX from "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe," by Raphael Lemkin, 1944 – – Prevent Genocide International|first=Jim|last=Fussell|access-date=30 April 2017}}

Although Lemkin was a Zionist through his entire life, during this period he downplayed his Zionist sympathies in order to convince the Arab and Muslim delegates in the UN to support the UN genocide convention.{{Cite book |last=Cooper |first=J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6EuGDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA147 |title=Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention |date=2008 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-0-230-58273-6 |page=147 |language=en}} Between 1953 and 1957, Lemkin worked directly with representatives of several governments, such as Egypt, to outlaw genocide under the domestic penal codes of these countries. Lemkin also worked with a team of lawyers from Arab delegations at the United Nations to build a case to prosecute French officials for genocide in Algeria.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p.217

Lemkin also applied the term 'genocide' in his 1953 article "Soviet Genocide in Ukraine", which he presented as a speech in New York City.{{Cite journal|last=Moses|first=A. Dirk|editor1-first=Donald|editor1-last=Bloxham|editor2-first=A. Dirk|editor2-last=Moses|date=18 September 2012|title=Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199232116.013.0002|journal=Oxford Handbooks Online|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199232116.013.0002}} Although the speech itself does not use the word "Holodomor", Lemkin asserts that an intentional program of starvation was the "third prong" of Soviet Russification of Ukraine, and disagrees that the deaths were simply a matter of disastrous economic policy because of the substantially Ukrainian ethnic profile of small farms in Ukraine at the time.Raphael Lemkin, [https://willzuzak.ca/tp/holodomor2013/oliver20171004Lemkin.pdf "Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine"]{{Cite journal|last=Antonovych|first=Myroslava|date=3 November 2015|title=Legal Accountability for the Holodomor-Genocide of 1932–1933 (Great Famine) in Ukraine|journal=Kyiv-Mohyla Law and Politics Journal|issue=1|pages=159–176|doi=10.18523/kmlpj52663.2015-1.159-176|issn=2414-9942|doi-access=free}}{{Citation|last=Cooper|first=John|title=The United Nations Resolution on Genocide|date=2008|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230582736_6|work=Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention|pages=76–87|place=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK|doi=10.1057/9780230582736_6|isbn=978-1-349-35468-9|access-date=22 October 2021}}

In the last years of his life, Lemkin was living in poverty in a New York apartment.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p.1 In 1959, at the age of 59, he died of a heart attack in New York City.{{Cite web|title=Raphael Lemkin Collection|url=https://archives.cjh.org//repositories/3/resources/13258|website=Center for Jewish History}} Only several close people attended his funeral at Riverside Church.{{Cite journal |title='In the Beginning, There Was No Word …' |url=https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/29/4/1053/5320160 |access-date=2023-02-24 |journal=European Journal of International Law|date=2018 |doi=10.1093/ejil/chy087 |last1=Vasel |first1=Johann Justus |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=1053–1056 }} Lemkin was buried in Flushing, Queens, at Mount Hebron Cemetery.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p. 229{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kmw_DQAAQBAJ&dq=Mount+Hebron+raphael+lemkin&pg=PA229|title=Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide|first=Douglas|last=Irvin-Erickson|date=23 May 2017|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=9780812248647 |via=Google Books}} At the time of his death, Lemkin left several unfinished works, including an Introduction to the Study of Genocide and an ambitious three-volume History of Genocide that contained seventy proposed chapters and a book-length analysis of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, p. 216

The United States, Lemkin's adopted country, did not ratify the Genocide Convention during his lifetime. He believed that his efforts to prevent genocide had failed. "The fact is that the rain of my work fell on a fallow plain," he wrote, "only this rain was a mixture of the blood and tears of eight million innocent people throughout the world. Included also were the tears of my parents and my friends."D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, pp. 1, 229 Lemkin was not widely known until the 1990s, when international prosecutions of genocide began in response to atrocities in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and "genocide" began to be understood as the worst crime of all crimes.D. Irvin-Erickson, "Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide", University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017, pp. 1, 2

For his work on international law and the prevention of war crimes, Lemkin received a number of awards, including the Cuban Grand Cross of the Order of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes in 1950, the Stephen Wise Award of the American Jewish Congress in 1951, and the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955. On the 50th anniversary of the Convention entering into force, Lemkin was also honored by the UN Secretary-General as "an inspiring example of moral engagement." He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize ten times.{{cite web|title=Nomination Database – Raphael Lemkin|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=5366|website=Nobelprize.org|publisher=Nobel Media AB 2014|access-date=13 April 2015}}

In 1989 he was awarded, posthumously, the Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Worship.{{cite web |url=http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/four-freedoms-awards |title=Four Freedoms Awards | Roosevelt Institute |access-date=25 March 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150325223647/http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/four-freedoms-awards |archive-date=25 March 2015 }}

Lemkin is the subject of the plays Lemkin's House by Catherine Filloux (2005){{cite web|url=http://www.catherinefilloux.com/lemkinshouse.html|title=Catherine Filloux – Playwright|access-date=30 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025180131/http://catherinefilloux.com/lemkinshouse.html|archive-date=25 October 2016|url-status=dead}} and If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty Against Genocide by Robert Skloot (2006).{{cite web|url=http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/additional/skloot.html|title=If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty Against Genocide by Robert Skloot|access-date=30 April 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150413070106/http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/additional/skloot.html|archive-date=13 April 2015}} He was also profiled in the 2014 American documentary film, Watchers of the Sky.

Every year, The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights (T’ruah) gives the Raphael Lemkin Human Rights Award to a layperson who draws on his or her Jewish values to be a human rights leader.{{Cite web|url=https://www.truah.org/?s=awards|title=awards | T'ruah|website=www.truah.org}}

On 20 November 2015, Lemkin's article Soviet genocide in Ukraine was added to the Russian index of "extremist publications", whose distribution in Russia is forbidden.{{Cite web|title = Федеральный список экстремистских материалов дорос до п. 3152|url = http://www.sova-center.ru/racism-xenophobia/news/counteraction/2015/11/d33272/|website = SOVA Center for Information and Analysis|access-date = 28 November 2015}}{{Cite web|title = ФЕДЕРАЛЬНЫЙ СПИСОК ЭКСТРЕМИСТСКИХ МАТЕРИАЛОВ|url = http://minjust.ru/ru/extremist-materials?field_extremist_content_value=&page=15|website = The Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation|access-date = 18 April 2017|archive-date = 16 May 2017|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170516211036/http://minjust.ru/ru/extremist-materials?field_extremist_content_value=&page=15|url-status = dead}}

On 15 September 2018 the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Foundation (www.ucclf.ca) and its supporters in the US unveiled the world's first Ukrainian/English/Hebrew/Yiddish plaque honouring Lemkin for his recognition of the tragic famine of 1932–1933 in the Soviet Union, the Holodomor, at the Ukrainian Institute of America, in New York City, marking the 75th anniversary of Lemkin's address, "Soviet Genocide in the Ukraine".

• {{cite book | title =The Polish Penal Code of 1932 and The Law of Minor Offenses|translator1-first=Malcolm

|translator1-last=McDermott |translator2-first=Raphael |translator2-last=Lemkin|location=Durham, North Carolina |publisher=Duke University Press |year=1939}}

• {{cite book | last=Lemkin | first=Raphael | title= Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offences Against the Law of Nations (5th Conference for the Unification of Penal Law)| date =1933 |location=Madrid}}
• {{cite book|title = La réglementation des paiements internationaux; traité de droit comparé sur les devises, le clearing et les accords de paiements, les conflits des lois.| last =Lemkin| first =Raphael |location=Paris |publisher=A. Pedone |year=1939}}
• {{cite book |last=Lemkin | first=Raphael |date=1942|title=Key laws, decrees and regulations issued by the Axis in occupied Europe |place=Washington |publisher=Board of Economic Warfare, Blockade and Supply Branch, Reoccupation Division}}
• {{cite book | last=Lemkin | first=Raphael | title=Axis rule in occupied Europe : laws of occupation, analysis of government, proposals for redress | publisher=Lawbook Exchange | location=Clark, N.J | year=1943 | isbn=978-1-58477-901-8 }}
• {{cite journal |title=Genocide - A Modern Crime |last =Lemkin| first =Raphael |journal=Free World |volume=9 |issue=4 |date=April 1945 |pages=39–43 |location=New York}}
• {{cite journal |title=The Crime of Genocide |last =Lemkin| first =Raphael |journal=American Scholar |volume=15 |issue=2 |date=April 1946 |pages=227–30}}
• {{cite journal|title=Genocide: A Commentary on the Convention |journal=Yale Law Journal |volume=58 |issue=7 |date=June 1949 |pages=1142–56 |doi=10.2307/792930|jstor=792930 |url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4830&context=ylj }}

{{Main|Outline of genocide studies}}

• Crimes against humanity
• War crime
• International criminal law
• Cultural genocide
• Gaza Genocide
• Rwandan Genocide
• Armenian genocide
• Holodomor
• The Holocaust
• Porajmos
• Hersch Lauterpacht

{{reflist|group=Note}}

{{reflist}}

• Eshet, Dan et al. (2007). [https://www.facinghistory.org/sites/default/files/publications/raphael_lemkin_0.pdf Totally Unofficial: Rafael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention]. Facing History and Ourselves Foundation, {{ISBN|978-0-9837870-2-0}}.
• {{cite book |last=Irvin-Erickson |first=Douglas |title=Raphaël Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|year=2017 |isbn=9780812248647}}
• {{Citation |last=Ishay |first=Micheline R. |title=The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era |publisher=Berkeley (CA): University of California Press |year=2008}}
• {{cite book |last=Jenkins |first=Bruce |year=2008 |title=The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died |location=New York |publisher=HarperOne |isbn=978-0-06-147280-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/losthistoryofchr00jenk }}
• {{Citation |last=Kornat |first=Marek |contribution=Rafal Lemkin's Formative Years and the Beginning of International Career in Inter-war Poland (1918-1939) |title=Rafał Lemkin: a Hero of Humankind |editor-last=Zbiorowa |editor-first=Praca |publisher=Polish Institute of International Affairs |year=2010 |isbn=978-83-89607-85-0}}
• {{cite book |last=Power |first=Samantha |author-link=Samantha Power |title=A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide |publisher=Basic Books |year=2002 |isbn=0-465-06150-8}} (Chapters 2–5). [https://archive.org/details/problemfromhella00powe_0 Available at Open Library].
• {{cite book |last1=Schaller |first1=Dominik |last2=Zimmerer |first2=Jürgen |title= The Origins of Genocide: Raphael Lemkin as a Historian of Mass Violence |location=London |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |isbn= 9780415480260}}
• {{cite journal |last=Szawłowski |first=Ryszard |title=Diplomatic File: Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959) – The Polish Lawyer Who Created the Concept of 'Genocide' |journal=Polish Quarterly of International Affairs |issue=2 |year=2005 |pages=98–133 }}

• Lemkin, Raphael, author; Frieze, Donna-Lee, editor (2013). Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin. Yale University Press, {{ISBN|0300186967}}.

• Beauvallet, Olivier (2011). Lemkin: face au génocide, with a French translation of "The legal case against Hitler" released in 1945. Paris: {{ill|Éditions Michalon|fr}}, "Le bien commun" series, {{ISBN|9782841865604}}.
• Bieńczyk-Missala, A. & Dębski, S., red. (2010). Rafał Lemkin: A Hero of Humankind. Warsaw: The Polish Institute of International Affairs.
• Bieńczyk-Missala, Agnieszka, scientific editor (2017). Civilians in contemporary armed conflicts: Rafał Lemkin's heritage (in English). Warsaw: University of Warsaw Publishing House
• Redzik, Adam & Zeman, Ihor. "Masters of Rafał Lemkin: Lwów school of law". pp. 235–240, {{ISBN|9788323527008}}.
• Redzik, Adam. "Rafał Lemkin (1900–1959) – co-creator of international criminal law. Short biography". p. 70, {{ISBN|978-83-931111-3-8}}.
• Cooper, John (2008). Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention. Palgrave/Macmallin. {{ISBN|0-230-51691-2}}.
• Irvin-Erickson, Douglas (2017). Raphaël Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide. University of Pennsylvania Press. {{ISBN|9780812293418}}.
• {{cite book|author=Sands, Philippe|title=East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York|year=2016|isbn=978-0-385-35071-6}}
• Shaw, Martin (2007). What is Genocide? (Chapter 2). Polity Press. {{ISBN|0-7456-3183-5}}.

:*[http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide]

:*[http://www.facinghistory.org/resources/publications/lemkin Totally Unofficial: Raphael Lemkin and the Genocide Convention] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120712195330/http://www.facinghistory.org/resources/publications/lemkin |date=12 July 2012 }} A study guide on Lemkin and his contributions to human rights law and activism, downloadable pdf at facinghistory.org

:*[http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/ Key writings of Raphael Lemkin on Genocide, 1933–1947], at preventgenocide.org

:*[http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/madrid1933-english.htm Acts Constituting a General (Transnational) Danger Considered as Offenses Against the Law of Nations] (for definitions of "barbarity" and "vandalism"), at preventgenocide.org

:*[http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Lemkin_Discusses_Armenian_Genocide_In_Newly-Found_1949_CBS_Interview Lemkin Discusses Armenian Genocide In Newly-Found 1949 CBS Interview], in: armeniapedia.org

• {{cite journal|author=Balakian, Peter|author-link=Peter Balakian|title=Raphael Lemkin, Cultural Destruction, and the Armenian Genocide|url=https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-abstract/27/1/57/762210?redirectedFrom=fulltext|journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies|volume=27|issue=1|date=Spring 2013|pages=57–89|doi=10.1093/hgs/dct001|s2cid=145008882}} - Published on 1 April 2013
• Bieńczyk-Missala, A. (2020). "Raphael Lemkin's Legacy in International Law", in: M. Odello, P. Łubiński, The Concept of Genocide in International Criminal Law. Developments After Lemkin. Routledge.
• Browning, Christopher R. (24 November 2016). "The Two Different Ways of Looking at Nazi Murder" (review of Philippe Sands, East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity", Knopf.
• {{cite journal |last= Elder |first= Tanya |title= What you see before your eyes: Documenting Raphael Lemkin's life by exploring his archival Papers,1900–1959 |journal= Journal of Genocide Research |volume= 7 |issue= 4 |date= December 2005 |pages= 469–499 |doi= 10.1080/14623520500349910 |s2cid= 56537572 |url= http://www.lygeros.org/section_genocide/Elder-Lemkin.pdf |access-date= 8 February 2017 |archive-date= 11 February 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170211080756/http://www.lygeros.org/section_genocide/Elder-Lemkin.pdf |url-status= dead }}
• Elder, Tanya. [http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=109202 Guide to the Papers of Raphael Lemkin]. The Center for Jewish History, New York
• Gerlach, Christian (24 November 2016). The Extermination of the European Jews, Cambridge University Press, The New York Review of Books, vol. LXIII, no. 18, pp. 56–58. Discusses Hersch Lauterpacht's legal concept of "crimes against humanity", contrasted with Rafael Lemkin's legal concept of "genocide". All genocides are crimes against humanity, but not all crimes against humanity are genocides; genocides require a higher standard of proof, as they entail intent to destroy a particular group.
• Hartwell, L. (2021). [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nejo.12359?af=R" Raphael Lemkin: The Constant Negotiator"]. Negotiation Journal.
• {{cite journal |author= Jacobs, Stephen Leonard |title= The Complicated Cases of Soghomon Tehlirian and Sholem Schwartzbard and Their Influences on Raphaël Lemkin's Thinking About Genocide |journal=Genocide Studies and Prevention |year= 2019 |volume=13 |issue=1 |doi= 10.5038/1911-9933.13.1.1594 |pages= 33–41 |doi-access= free |url= https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1594&context=gsp}} Also [https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol13/iss1/7 here].
• Marrus, Michael R. (20 November 2015). "Three Roads from Nuremberg". Tablet magazine.
• Szawłowski, Ryszard (2015). Rafał Lemkin, warszawski adwokat (1934–1939), twórca pojęcia "genocyd" i główny architekt konwencji z 9 grudnia 1948 r. ("Konwencji Lemkina"). W 55-lecie śmierci (in Polish). [Rafał Lemkin, lawyer from Warsaw (1934–1939), creator of the term "genocide" and chief architect of the convention of December 9, 1948 (the "Lemkin Convention"). On the 55th anniversary of his death.]. Warsaw.
• {{cite journal |last1=Weiss-Wendt |first1=Anton|author-link=Anton Weiss-Wendt |title=Hostage of politics: Raphael Lemkin on "Soviet genocide" |journal=Journal of Genocide Research |date=December 2005 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=551–559 |doi=10.1080/14623520500350017|s2cid=144612446}}
• {{cite journal|last=Winter|first=Jay|title=Prophet Without Honors|journal=The Chronicle Review|date=7 June 2013|page=B14|url=http://chronicle.com/article/Raphael-Lemkin-a-Prophet/139515/|access-date=10 June 2013}}

{{Portal|Law|Judaism|Poland}}

• Fogel, Joshua. [http://yleksikon.blogspot.com/2017/06/rifoel-raphael-lemkin.html "Rifoel (Raphael) Lemkin"]. Yiddish Leksikon. Biography with main publications including journalistic contributions. Posted 15 June 2017, accessed 10 July 2022.
• [http://findingaids.cul.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_10250472 Raphael Lemkin papers, 1931–1947], held by Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
• [http://archives.nypl.org/mss/1730 Raphael Lemkin papers, 1947–1959], held by the Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library
• [http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=109202 Raphael Lemkin Collection, P-154] held by the American Jewish Historical Society, New York NY
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090726004937/http://www.auschwitzinstitute.org/lemkin.html Raphael Lemkin Center for Genocide Prevention] at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation
• [https://artsandculture.google.com/story/KgWBQNOMBB8A8A?hl=en Raphael Lemkin and the Quest to End Genocide] Electronic exhibit by the Center for Jewish History at the Google Cultural Institute

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lemkin, Raphael}}

Category:20th-century Polish lawyers

Category:Polish legal scholars

Category:Jewish legal scholars

Category:International criminal law scholars

Category:Philosophers of law

Category:Rutgers School of Law–Newark faculty

Category:Duke University School of Law faculty

Category:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

*

*

Category:Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Category:Jewish anti-communists

Category:Polish anti-communists

Category:Polish emigrants to the United States

Category:Polish Zionists

Category:20th-century Polish Jews

Category:20th-century Belarusian Jews

Category:People from Zelva district

Category:People from Volkovyssky Uyezd

Category:Jews from the Russian Empire

Category:Burials at Mount Hebron Cemetery (New York City)

Category:1900 births

Category:1959 deaths

Category:Articles containing video clips