Raphael Lemkin Papers

Manuscript Collection No. 60

1942-1959. 2.8 Linear ft.

ACCESS AND PROVENANCE
The Raphael Lemkin Papers were donated by Dr. Robert R. Lemkin in April, 1965. 1965. In November 1983 an additional supplement of papers were donated by Rabbi David Saperstein, Washington, D.C. Dr.Lemkin and Rabbi Saperstein, by the act of donating the Raphael Lemkin Papers to the American Jewish Archives, assigned the property rights to the American Jewish Archives. All literary rights to materials authored by Raphael Lemkin are held by the Lemkin heirs. Literary rights to materials authored by others are held by the individual author or his/her heirs. Questions concerning rights should be addressed to the Director of the American Jewish Archives.
The papers are open to all users and available in the reading room of the American Jewish Archives.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH top

Raphael Lemkin was born on June 24, 1901, near Bezwodene, Poland, one of three sons of Joseph and Bella (Pomerantz) Lemkin. Until the age of fourteen Lemkin was educated primarily in the humanities by tutors and by his mother. Lemkin studied philology at the University of Lwow in Poland and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He spoke nine languages and read fourteen. He also studied in France and in Italy.
Lemkin decided on a law career and after receiving his degree became public prosecutor for the District Court of Poland (1929-1934). He continued as Professor of Family Law at Tachkimoni College, Warsaw, where he had taught since 1927. In 1929 he also became secretary of the Committee on Codification of the Laws of the Polish Republic (1929-1935).
Even as a young boy the mass murder of a group of people had upset Lemkin. The book Quo Vadis, along with the slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I and Christian Assyrians by Iraqis in 1933, caused Lemkiri to wonder why such things were allowed to happen. In 1933 he appeared before the Legal Council of the League of Nations in Madrid with a proposal to outlaw "acts of barbarism and vandalism." His proposal was not adopted and he returned to Poland.
Dr. Lemkin's actions in Madrid were looked upon unfavorably by the Polish government which was pursuing a policy of conciliation with the new Nazi regime in Germany. He retired from public office and went into private legal practice in Warsaw (1934-1939).
In 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Lemkin became a guerilla fighter against the Nazis, was wounded, hid in the forests for six months, and finally managed to escape to Sweden. He and his brother Elias were the only surviving members of a family containing over forty members. During 1940-1941 he was visiting lecturer of law at the University of Sweden, Stockholm. While in Sweden, he began collecting documents concerning Nazi rule in occupied countries.
Lemkin came to the United States in 1941 with an invitation to lecture at Duke University, North Carolina. During the summer of 1942 he lectured at the U.S. War Department, School of Military Government at Charlottesville University, Virginia and wrote Military Government in Europe which was a preliminary version of his more fully-developed publication, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. From 1942-1943 Professor Lemkin was chief consultant of the U.S. Board of Economic Warfare and Foreign Economic Administration. In 1944, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe was published. The book made use of the information which Lemkin had gathered while in Sweden. In this book the word "genocide" was first used. Genocide came from the Greek "genos" (race) and the Latin "cide" (killing) and meant the deliberate destruction of a racial, ethnic, or religious group.
Dr. Lemkin became consultant on international law to the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army in 1945 and was appointed legal advisor to the U.S. Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials (1945-1946). Material from Axis Rule in Occupied Europe was used as one of the bases for determining the war trials program. From 1946-1947 Lemkin was an advisor on foreign affairs for the U.S. War Department.
In the meantime he continued his fight to have genocide recognized as an international crime. He hoped to have a genocide convention adopted by the Paris peace conference in 1945 but was unsuccessful. He turned to the United Nations and by arguments and persuasion managed to convince the U.N. delegates of Cuba, Panama, and India to propose a resolution making genocide a crime under international law. The resolution was unanimously passed in 1946. For the next two years Lemkin worked on the draft of the treaty. On December 9, 1948 the Genocide Convention was unanimously adopted. It was to go into effect 90 days after the twentieth country ratified it and on October 15, 1950, it became international law. (Over 50 countries have ratified the Genocide Convention, the United States ratified the treaty on November 11, 1988).
Lemkin provided financial support for his one-man campaign for a Genocide Convention by lecturing at Yale University from 1948-1951. He also taught at Rutgers University from 1955-1956 as well as at Princeton. In 1950 and 1952 he was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. His friends also attempted to have him nominated for the Peace Prize of 1955, 1956, 1958, and 1959. He did, however, receive the Grand Cross of Cespedes from Cuba in 1950 and the Stephen Wise Award of the American Jewish Congress in 1951. He died on August 28, 1959.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE top

The papers of Raphael Lemkin contain material relating to his crusade for the adoption of an international law making genocide a crime as well as material on the Nuremberg trials and the Nobel Peace Prize. The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, newspaper clippings, printed material and miscellaneous material. The papers span the years between 1942-1959 with the bulk of the material covering the years 1948-1956.
The majority of the collection is in English with some materials in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, Polish, and Finnish.

The papers are divided into two (2) series

A. GENOCIDE CONVENTION

B. MISCELLANEOUS

SERIES A. GENOCIDE CONVENTION. This portion of the collection consists of four hollinger boxes covering the years 1944-1959. There are two sub-series: Correspondence and Miscellaneous. The correspondence sub-series is arranged alphabetically by correspondent with the unidentified correspondence at the end of the series. The correspondence is international in region and is in French, Italian, Spanish, German, as well as English. The miscellaneous sub-series consists of news articles, printed material, speeches, press releases, memoranda, and petitions.

SERIES B. MISCELLANEOUS. This series consists of three hollinger boxes covering the years 1942-1959. It contains biographical material, material on the Nuremberg trials, the Nobel Peace Prize, copies of the Military Government in Europe, a photocopy of portions of Axis Rule in Occupied Europe and miscellaneous memoranda and printed material dealing with Nazi concentration camps, refugees, the Cold War, and religious magazines. The series is divided into two sub-series: Sub-series 1. General and Sub-series 2. Studies of Genocide in Various Countries.

RELATED COLLECTION IN OTHER REPOSITORIES

American Jewish Historical Society, Waltham Massachusetts
Raphael Lemkin Papers, 1941-1951.

BOX AND FOLDER LISTING top
Box	Folder			Contents

SERIES A. GENOCIDE CONVENTION
	
Sub-series 1: Correspondence

1	1			A, General.
	2			B, General.
	3			C, General.
	4			D, General. 
	5			E, General.
	6			F, General.
	7			G, General.
	8			H, General.
	9			I, General.
	10			J, General.
	11			K, General.
	12			L, General.
	13			Lemkin, Raphael, 1942-1948.
	14			Lemkin, Raphael, 1949.
	15			Lemkin, Raphael, 1950.	
	
2	1			Lemkin, Raphael, 1951.
	2			Lemkin, Raphael, 1952.
	3			Lemkin, Raphael, 1953.
	4			Lemkin, Raphael, 1954-1956.
	5			Lemkin, Raphael, 1957.
	6			Lemkin, Raphael, 1958.
	7			Lemkin, Raphael, 1959; n.d.
	8			M, General. 
	9			N, General. 
	10			O, General.
	11			P, General.
	12			Q-R, General.
	13			S-Sh, General.
	14			Si-Sz, General.
	15			T, General.
	16			U-V, General.
	17			W, General.
	18			Y-Z, General.
	19			Unidentified.
	20			Personal miscellaneous 1944; 1951-1956; n.d.



Box	Folder			Contents

Sub-series 2. Miscellaneous

3	1			Newsclippings. U.S.; 1944-1959.
	2			Foreign newsclippings; German, French, Polish, Spanish, Yiddish,
					and Hebrew.
	3			Printed publications, U.S.
	4			Printed publications, U.S. 
	5			Printed publications, German, French, Spanish.

4	1			Petitions to U.N. General Assembly to adopt the Genocide
					Convention; 1948.
	2			Scripts of radio programs; 1947-1956.
	3			Press releases; 1948-1959; n.d.
	4			Statements and speeches; 1949-1957; n.d.
	5			Resolutions urging the ratification of the Genocide conventions,
					1947-1952; n.d.
	6			Memoranda concerning the Genocide Convention, its ratification
					and revision; n.d.
	7			Miscellaneous material on the Genocide Convention, English 
					1947-1957; n.d.
	8			Miscellaneous material on the Genocide Convention, German,
					French, Spanish, Italian; n.d.

SERIES B. MISCELLANEOUS
	
Sub-series 1. General

5	1			Deposition of witnesses at the Nuremberg trials; 1945-1946.
	2	 	 	Reprint of trial transcript (fragment).
	3			Correspondence and newsclipping relating to the Nobel Peace Prize,
					1950, 1952, 1955, 1956, 1958, and 1959	
	4			Photocopy of Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. 1944 (fragment)
	5			Miscellaneous; memoranda, press releases, papers on international
					law, classes taught at Rutgers; 1951-1959; n.d. 
	6			Miscellaneous printed material; German, French, Spanish, Italian,
					Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew. 
	7			Biographical material.

6	1			Readings on Military Government in Europe. 
	2			Miscellaneous publications.





Box	Folder			Contents

Sub-Series 2: Studies of Genocide in Various Countries

6	3			Albigensians.
	4			Alva; the Netherlands.
	5			Assyria.
	6			Ceylon [16th Century]
	7			Chios [Turkish Persecutions]		
	8			French in Sicily [ca. 1282]
	9			Germans in Africa.	
	10			Greece [Ottoman Empire].
	11			Greece [1948-1950].	
	12			Hereros.
	13			Huguenots.
	14			Hungary [U.N. Report]. 
	
7	1			Incas.
	2			International Collective Responsibility for Survival of National
					Racial, Religious, and Ethnical Groups. 
	3			Iraq under Hulagu [13th century].
	4			Japan [Persecution of Catholics in 16th-17th centuries]
	5			Lusations.
	6			Mongols.
	7			Moravia Under the Mongols.
	8			Mormons.
	9			Moors and Moriscos.
	10			Nagas.
	11			Nationalism.
	12			Nazi Genocide [Untitled Manuscript]
	13			Nuremberg. 
	14			Teutonic Knights and Prussian Pagans.
	15			Unidentified. 		
SUBJECT TRACINGS top
Note:    The following list of subjects is a selective index to many of people and 
subjects in the RAPHAEL LEMKIN PAPERS.  It is selective in that it only attempts to draw
attention to the more significant items in the collection.  When used in conjunction with 
the Box and Folder List, the Subject Tracings should help the researcher locate topics. 
References are to boxes and folders: e.g. 1/5 means Box 1 Folder 5.



Adenauer, Konrad 1/1.
Al-Faqih, Asad 1/1, 15.
Alfaro, Ricardo 1/1.
American Jewish Congress 1/0; 2/8,9,11,13.
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith 1/5; 2/12.
Austin, Warren R. 1/1; 2/19.
Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, book review of, see Leopold Kohl 1/11.

Belt, Guillermo 1/2, 13.
Blum, Leon 1/2, 15.
B'nai B'rith 1/2,7.
Buck, Pearl S. 1/2; 3/1; 5/3.

Cavert, Samuel McCrea 1/3.
Celler, Emanuel 1/3; 2/6; 5/3.
Chang, John 1/3, 15/ 5/3.

Dulles, John Foster 1/4; 2/3.

Echandi, Mario 1/5.
Ennals, John 1/5; 2/1,3.
Evatt, Hervert V. 1/5,13.

Figueroa, Ana 1/6,14,15; 2/1.
Finch, George A. 1/6.

Grigaitis, Pius 1/7; 2/2.

Huber, Max 1/13.
Humphrey, Hubert 1/8,
Huntley, Chet 1/8.

Javits, Jacob K. 1/10.

Kefauver, Estes 1/11.
Kihss, Peter 1/11.

Lie, Trygve 1/11,13; 2/13.
Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr. 1/12, 13.

Marshall, George C. 2/8.

National Conference of Christians and Jews 1/3,10.
Nobel Peace Prize 5/3.
Nuremberg trials 5/1,2.

Roosevelt, Eleanor 1/13.
Rosenberg, Jams N. 2/12.

Silver, Abba Hillel 2/3.
Smith, A. Viola 2/14.
Smith, Lawrence H. 2/14.
Spellman. Cardinal Francis 1/14.

Taft, Robert A. 2/15.
Tenebaum, Joseph 2/15.
Truman, Harry S. 1/10; 211.

World Federation of United Associations 1/2, 5, 10; 2/17.
World Jewish Congress 1/2,10,11; 2/8, 13, 15
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Copyright © 2003 Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives