
eBook - PDF
Messengers of Disaster
Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides
- 304 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
Messengers of Disaster
Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides
About this book
Leading up to World War II, two Polish men witnessed the targeted extermination of Jews under Adolf Hitler and the German Reich before the reality of the Holocaust was widely known. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term "genocide," and Jan Karski, a Catholic member of the Polish resistance, independently shared this knowledge with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Having heard false rumors of wartime atrocities before, the leaders met the messengers with disbelief and inaction, leading to the eventual murder of more than six million people.
Messengers of Disaster draws upon little-known texts from an array of archives, including the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. Carrying the knowledge of disaster took a toll on Lemkin and Karski, but their work prepared the way for the United Nations to unanimously adopt the first human rights convention in 1948 and influenced the language we use to talk about genocide today. Annette Becker's detailed study of these two important figures illuminates how distortions of fact can lead people to deny knowledge of what is happening in front of their own eyes.
Messengers of Disaster draws upon little-known texts from an array of archives, including the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. Carrying the knowledge of disaster took a toll on Lemkin and Karski, but their work prepared the way for the United Nations to unanimously adopt the first human rights convention in 1948 and influenced the language we use to talk about genocide today. Annette Becker's detailed study of these two important figures illuminates how distortions of fact can lead people to deny knowledge of what is happening in front of their own eyes.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Messengers of Disaster by Annette Becker, Käthe Roth in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & European History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Introduction: the Unnamable is Unnamable
- 1. Karski the Soldier, Lemkin the Lawyer: 1939–40
- 2. Karski Discovers the Annihilation of Lemkin’s World: 1941–42
- 3. Flashback: From Violence to Myth; From One War, Another, 1942, 1914
- 4. Naming a Nameless Crime: Lemkin and Karski in the United States, 1943–45
- 5. The War Is Over: Weep for the Dead, Find the Living, Judge the Criminals
- 6. Becoming Karski, Becoming Lemkin: 1978–2018
- Conclusion: Armenians, Jews, Tutsis
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Index