Information Agency: Rafał Lemkin is simply a surname that has permanently entered the past of global law and human rights. The Polish-Jewish lawyer, philosopher and linguist, is the author of the word “genocide”, who revolutionized the way of speaking and reasoning about the heaviest crimes against humanity. Educated in pre-war Poland, he tied his life to fighting for justice for nations affected by crimes specified as the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide.
Home
Who was Rafal Lemkin?
Rafał Lemkin was born on 24 June 1900 in Anhydrous in the erstwhile Russian Empire, in a household of Polish Jews. His father was a farmer, his parent an intellectual and an artist who instilled in him a love of literature, past and languages. He grew up in a multi-denominational environment, where Poles, Jews, Rusini and Catholics lived together. Lemkin himself recalled: “Although they did not like each other, they shared deep love for their cities, hills and rivers.”
He was a polyglot, fluent in respective languages, which allowed him to read legal papers in the first and analyse the multilayerity of cultural contexts. This made him a unique investigator of crimes against humanity.
From an early age, he was curious in the past of persecution. The reading of “Quo Vadis” by Henryk Sienkiewicz and descriptions of throwing Christians to lions in Roman amphitheatres made a large impression on him. "The line of blood leads from the Roman arena through the Galian gallows to the Białystok pogrom," he wrote in later years.
In his autobiography “Totally Unofficial” he besides mentioned: “When I walked in the fields of my childhood, even trees seemed to suffer. They were moaning with us.” This illustrates how profoundly he empathically perceived the planet and how emotionally he experienced injustice.
Rafał Lemkin and Poland
Rafał Lemkin studied law at the University of Lviv, where he faced the past of the Armenian genocide and the Assyrian massacre. Even then, he asked questions about the legal protection of cultural groups. erstwhile his professor, well-known criminal law specialist Juliusz Makarewicz, defended the sovereignty of states as a regulation preventing intervention in the event of massacres, Lemkin replied, “But Armenians are not chickens.”
In the 1930s, he worked as a prosecutor in Brzeżany and Warsaw, where he represented Poland at global legal conferences, among others in Madrid (1933), where he proposed to recognise “barbarity” as an global offence.
W Warsaw was active in the improvement of criminal law. Lemkin, as a young lawyer, pointed out the request to internationalise government protecting minorities. He was besides active in academic environments and collaborated with the League of Nations.
Raphael Lemkin and Genocide
During planet War II Lemkin fled Poland through Lithuania to Sweden and then reached the United States. In 1944, he published the book “Axis regulation in Octupied Europe” in which he first utilized the word “genocid” — combining Greek “genos” (race, nation) and Latin “-cide” (killing).
"A million Armenians died, but the law prohibiting the execution of nations was written in ink of their blood and in the spirit of their suffering," Lemkin wrote, stressing the importance of their tragedy as inspiration.
After the war, he was an advisor to American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson during Nuremberg trials. Although the “genocid” was not then full applied as a legal term, Lemkin continued to work on its global recognition. He said: “I am ashamed of my helplessness toward the murderers of mankind, a shame that does not leave me to this day. Wine without guilt is more destructive than justified wine, for in the first case there is no purification.’
In 1948, the UN General Assembly passed the Convention on the Prevention and punishment of Genocide Crimes, and Rafał Lemkin was its main author and advocate. He recalled: “It was my individual crusade. all country that ratified the convention was like a triumph in the conflict for life.”
Rafał Lemkin and Armenians
For Armenian diaspora, Rafał Lemkin was an almost prophetic figure. He collaborated with the "Hairenik Weekly" editorial board and Armenian journalists in Boston, calling for support for ratification of the convention. “The Armenians of the full planet were profoundly curious in the Genocide Convention. They filled the UN galleries during its Paris meeting," Lemkin recalled.
The Armenians returned his memory. His name is inactive worshiped in the Museum of Genocide in Yerevan, and his definitions and actions are an integral part of the communicative about the demolition of Armenians in 1915. "Hairenik Weekly" editors wrote: "To make any difference, the decision to ban genocide must besides offer compensation to victims."
Many Armenians mentioned Lemkin with individual sympathy. 1 UN correspondent, Levon Keshishian, said, “You are Armenian, so you will realize how crucial this convention is,” Lemkin told him.
Rafał Lemkin: A lonely warrior
Rafał Lemkin was nominated 10 times for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although influenced by the full planet strategy of law, he lived in poorness and died alone on August 28, 1959, in fresh York City. There were only a fewer people at his funeral.
His autobiography "Totally Unofficial", published posthumously in 2013, is simply a moving evidence of individual struggle. There were specified records as: “Every tree reminded me of dead children, all train was full of desperate souls” and “I saw women crying without tears, men with eyes empty like burnt houses.”
His evidence is not only a tale of legal triumph, but besides of moral determination and ethical opposition to indifference. Rafał Lemkin remains a symbol of the conflict for the rights of nations and cultural groups, which for centuries have been victims of silent violence.
Rafał Lemkin Not only did he name genocide. He gave the planet a tool to defy its repeatability. His Polish-Jewish identity and multilingual education made him a bridge between victims and the planet of law. present his legacy is more fresh than ever.
AI Culture, Armenia /KNJ / Image: image of Raphael Lemkin: To Український інститут пам’яті – Gente de la verdad, CC BY-SA 3.0 / 7.07.2025
