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'GENOCIDE' COINER GAINS RECOGNITION
RU Daily Targum, NJ
April 17 2014
Courtesy of Alex Hinton
.
Raphael Lemkin, a former Rutgers professor, has been recognized for
coining the term 'genocide.'
Posted: Thursday, April 17, 2014 12:00 am
'Genocide' coiner gains recognition Julian Chokkattu / Correspondent
DailyTargum.com | 0 comments
"Genocide" is a word almost everyone has heard, said Jeff Benvenuto,
a part-time lecturer in the Department of History. What most people
have not heard of is the person who coined the term.
Raphael Lemkin, whose name was largely forgotten for decades, has
been recognized as the father of genocide studies and for coining
the term "genocide." He first used it in his 1944 book "Axis Rule
in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government -
Proposals for Redress."
CBS News Commentator Quincy Howe said in an interview with Lemkin
that his word was derived from the Greek word "genos," meaning race
or group, and the Latin root, "-cide," meaning to kill.
"I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times,"
Lemkin said in the interview. "It happened to the Armenians, and
after the Armenians, Hitler took action."
Lemkin, who fled the Holocaust, was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize twice and urged the United Nations to outlaw genocide.
He died suddenly on 42nd street in New York at the age of 59 after
living in poverty and sickness, said Alex Hinton, director of the
Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, or CGHR.
The Raphael Lemkin International Award was recently established by the
U.N. in honor of Lemkin's work and for his contributions in criminal
international law.
Lemkin taught at Duke and Yale University, but also taught
international law at the Rutgers School of Law-Newark from 1955
to 1956.
Hinton, who is also the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization Chair on Genocide Prevention, has been trying to
find details about Lemkin's time at Rutgers, but it has been difficult
because the archives do not have enough information.
Hinton said the Genocide Program of CGHR established the Raphael
Lemkin Project. The project allows students to research Lemkin's work
and present their research at a symposium.
He restructured the way he teaches his courses, which now begin with
Lemkin's life.
"He combined both the desire to prevent genocide, so he had this
activist side of him, but he also was a rigorous scholar," Hinton
said. "Our center tries to do rigorous scholarship but we also have
a desire to have a critical engagement with issues like genocide
prevention, mass atrocities and human rights issues more broadly."
Hinton believes it was the renewed interest in human rights -- which
was elevated in the events that took place in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur
-- and Samantha Power's book that thrust Lemkin into the limelight.
It was around the time when high school and college groups mobilized
to raise awareness to prevent genocide in Darfur when Power, U.S.
ambassador to the U.N., published her Pulitzer Prize-winning book,
"A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," in which
Lemkin is mentioned.
But to Lemkin, the word "genocide" has a broader reference than what
was included in the U.N. Hinton said Lemkin's definition included
cultural genocide, which is the destruction of a cultural heritage.
Benvenuto, a graduate student at Rutgers-Newark in the Division of
Global Affairs Program, said the secretary-general of the U.N.
commissioned Lemkin and two other experts to write the first draft
of the law calling for the international convention to punish the
crime of genocide.
Benvenuto, who helped create the webpage for the Raphael Lemkin
Project, said the more he learned about Lemkin, the more he was
fascinated.
"He's got an amazing life story, which frankly would make an incredible
feature film," Benvenuto said. "This guy basically traveled around
the world, escaped from Nazis and changed the world."
Hudson McFann, a Ph.D. student in geography at Rutgers-New Brunswick,
works closely with Hinton on research focusing on genocide and the
Khmer Rouge, the organization responsible for the Cambodian genocide.
When McFann was researching at the New York Public Library and looked
through the Raphael Lemkin papers, he took notice to the role of myth
that Lemkin focused on, specifically how myths about groups of people
can contribute to the rationalization of acts of genocide.
His experience researching about Lemkin was extraordinary.
"You really realize when you look at the [the Raphael Lemkin papers]
on microfilm, how much different of an experience it is and in fact
in many instances, how much is lost."v
RU Daily Targum, NJ
April 17 2014
Courtesy of Alex Hinton
.
Raphael Lemkin, a former Rutgers professor, has been recognized for
coining the term 'genocide.'
Posted: Thursday, April 17, 2014 12:00 am
'Genocide' coiner gains recognition Julian Chokkattu / Correspondent
DailyTargum.com | 0 comments
"Genocide" is a word almost everyone has heard, said Jeff Benvenuto,
a part-time lecturer in the Department of History. What most people
have not heard of is the person who coined the term.
Raphael Lemkin, whose name was largely forgotten for decades, has
been recognized as the father of genocide studies and for coining
the term "genocide." He first used it in his 1944 book "Axis Rule
in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government -
Proposals for Redress."
CBS News Commentator Quincy Howe said in an interview with Lemkin
that his word was derived from the Greek word "genos," meaning race
or group, and the Latin root, "-cide," meaning to kill.
"I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times,"
Lemkin said in the interview. "It happened to the Armenians, and
after the Armenians, Hitler took action."
Lemkin, who fled the Holocaust, was nominated for the Nobel Peace
Prize twice and urged the United Nations to outlaw genocide.
He died suddenly on 42nd street in New York at the age of 59 after
living in poverty and sickness, said Alex Hinton, director of the
Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, or CGHR.
The Raphael Lemkin International Award was recently established by the
U.N. in honor of Lemkin's work and for his contributions in criminal
international law.
Lemkin taught at Duke and Yale University, but also taught
international law at the Rutgers School of Law-Newark from 1955
to 1956.
Hinton, who is also the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization Chair on Genocide Prevention, has been trying to
find details about Lemkin's time at Rutgers, but it has been difficult
because the archives do not have enough information.
Hinton said the Genocide Program of CGHR established the Raphael
Lemkin Project. The project allows students to research Lemkin's work
and present their research at a symposium.
He restructured the way he teaches his courses, which now begin with
Lemkin's life.
"He combined both the desire to prevent genocide, so he had this
activist side of him, but he also was a rigorous scholar," Hinton
said. "Our center tries to do rigorous scholarship but we also have
a desire to have a critical engagement with issues like genocide
prevention, mass atrocities and human rights issues more broadly."
Hinton believes it was the renewed interest in human rights -- which
was elevated in the events that took place in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur
-- and Samantha Power's book that thrust Lemkin into the limelight.
It was around the time when high school and college groups mobilized
to raise awareness to prevent genocide in Darfur when Power, U.S.
ambassador to the U.N., published her Pulitzer Prize-winning book,
"A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide," in which
Lemkin is mentioned.
But to Lemkin, the word "genocide" has a broader reference than what
was included in the U.N. Hinton said Lemkin's definition included
cultural genocide, which is the destruction of a cultural heritage.
Benvenuto, a graduate student at Rutgers-Newark in the Division of
Global Affairs Program, said the secretary-general of the U.N.
commissioned Lemkin and two other experts to write the first draft
of the law calling for the international convention to punish the
crime of genocide.
Benvenuto, who helped create the webpage for the Raphael Lemkin
Project, said the more he learned about Lemkin, the more he was
fascinated.
"He's got an amazing life story, which frankly would make an incredible
feature film," Benvenuto said. "This guy basically traveled around
the world, escaped from Nazis and changed the world."
Hudson McFann, a Ph.D. student in geography at Rutgers-New Brunswick,
works closely with Hinton on research focusing on genocide and the
Khmer Rouge, the organization responsible for the Cambodian genocide.
When McFann was researching at the New York Public Library and looked
through the Raphael Lemkin papers, he took notice to the role of myth
that Lemkin focused on, specifically how myths about groups of people
can contribute to the rationalization of acts of genocide.
His experience researching about Lemkin was extraordinary.
"You really realize when you look at the [the Raphael Lemkin papers]
on microfilm, how much different of an experience it is and in fact
in many instances, how much is lost."v