Witness to Fate: The Auschwitz Album

In an incredibly chilling way, The Auschwitz Album, which is among the several choices of documents to be used as resources for this year’s White Rose Essay Contest, is one of the most concrete forms of evidence we have of the Third Reich’s attempted genocide of all of European Jewry. The album was used during testimonies at the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt, in the 1960’s. The images bear witness to the deportation of Hungarian Jews from the Berehova Ghetto, some wearing the Stars of David on their coats, to Auschwitz-Birkenau during the spring of 1944.  Also pictured is the “selection” process on the ramp off the newly built train track spur, designed to bring the rails inside the camp, enabling a more efficient movement of larger crowds of people closer to the crematoria in a shorter amount of time.  And perhaps most haunting is the evidence of groups of individuals who have just been sorted and are on the actual walk to the crematoria, some waiting outside the gas chambers, in a grove of birch trees which gave Birkenau its name. Included as well: documentation of imprisoned workers sorting through truckloads of clothing and personal items, confiscated after euphemistic “delousing showers.”

Little is known for certain about the album’s creation, but its re-discovery is an incredible story.  Lilly Jacob, one of the victims pictured on some of the 56 pages of over 190 black and white images still remaining, was liberated from Dora, a sub-camp of Nordhausen, after the war. At the time, she weighed no more than 80 pounds and had to be lifted on a stretcher.  Lilly stumbled upon the album in a deserted SS barracks where she was being temporarily detained 400 miles from Auschwitz. These photographs were around May 26, 1944.  When Lilly found the album months later and hundreds of miles away, she leafed through the photographs and recognized first, her rabbi; then she spotted family members and pictures of herself among the crowds of individuals taken from their community of Bilke, near the Carpathian mountains of Hungary. She kept the album for several years, and eventually sold some of the glass plate prints to the Jewish Museum in Prague, for passage to the United States. 

Once in Miami, news spread of the rare collection of photographs. Survivors began to arrive to examine the images, to see if, by chance, their loved ones were among those pictured on that day in May of 1944.  On the rare occasion that people would be able to identify themselves, or a family member, Lilly would give them the photo.  Recently, one of these has been donated back to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Israel.  Serge Klarsfeld, a famous Nazi-hunter, convinced Lilly to donate the album and all of the remaining prints to Yad Vashem in 1980.  A database of the information on each photograph was created and conservators at the museum restored the suite. Each image was digitally scanned in 1999.  These reproductions are considered to be in the public domain, and can be accessed on the Yad Vashem website and USHMM’s website.  A PowerPoint with select photos and information about the entire album is available on MCHE’s website.

As a photography teacher, I use a specific tool to engage students in an aesthetic scanning activity to analyze individual photographs.  There are 3 columns: what this gives me, what this is made with, and possible reasons for making this. When talking about these incredibly unique photos from the Auschwitz Album, I don’t have any concrete reasons for creating this collection of photographs.  There is speculation, and it is thought that they were made by one or both of the “staff” photographers at the camp, who typically spent their days taking “mug shots” of the prisoners as a record of the few individuals whose lives were prolonged through labor in the camp.  If that is the case, Ernst Hofmann and/or Bernhard Walter immortalized these several hundred souls. When using the images as a resource, feel free to use the attached tool, designed specifically for photos from this one-of-a-kind album, to assist students in talking about what they see.  Have them fill out the forms before a class discussion, or use this 2-sided analysis sheet as a guide for a DBQ based on a single image. Questioning strategies might begin with reading this Elie Wiesel’s quote based on his personal experience in deportation from Hungary: 

“Every yard or so an SS man held his gun trained on us.  Hand in hand we followed the crowd. ‘Men to the left. Women to the right.’ Eight words spoken, indifferently, without emotion.  Eight short simple words. For a part of a second I glimpsed my mother and my sister moving to the right. I saw them disappear in the distance while I walked on with my father and the other men. I did not know that at that place, at that moment, I was parting from my mother and my sister forever.”

Follow by asking –

• Do you think this image/these pictures from the Auschwitz album present(s) an ordinary day of unloading prisoners? 
•  Do these photos seem to be staged or planned, set up in any way?  What specific things do you see that make you believe that? 
•  What would be the advantage of taking so many different pictures, from so many angles? 
•  Did you see any of the same people more than once?  How did you recognize them?  Again, what would be the advantage of having multiple images of the same people at different times? 
•  Do you see any pictures that look like they were taken one right after the other?  Which one happened first?  How can you tell? 
• How long do you think the whole group of pictures took to shoot?  What clues do we have? 
•  What do YOU think would be the reason to make such a detailed, visual record of this day?

When viewing the pictures, taken individually, or in a series, I am always a little hesitant to look for very long; but simultaneously, I want to pore over them. There is at once a pull and an instinct to leave these people alone, for the last few moments of privacy they will ever have with their loved ones.  There is an inherent intimacy here. I don’t belong. I have information they do not.  I know what will happen to most of their bodies soon after these pictures are taken.  And I don’t want this information. Not while I am looking into their eyes. Yet, in some inexplicable way, I am drawn in, against my will by some vestige of hope that by participating, by receiving the likeness, I will assist in perpetuating a potentially unending chain of witness. I experience an emotion I don’t have while viewing any other photographs. I want the power in the photo to stop time. I feel, in every sense of the word, a new definition of the verb we often use for creating photographs - they were taken: from the then present, in a very mater-of-fact way, as witness; taken as slices of time, from life; taken from families; taken from what in a few minutes will be this existence; taken from culture and the promise future brings.  And this robbing changes everything. As we peer into the past and lost futures, simultaneously, we are taken, transported, away from a time of being civilized.

While I am reluctant to speculate about the reasons these photos were taken, at the same time, I am incredibly grateful that they were, to bear witness.  In an age of easy photo enhancement and photo shopping, I know the incalculable value of these pictures to speak the truth about the depths our inhumanity can reach. A few years from now, no human being alive will have actually experienced these atrocities.   But will these photos be enough of a witness?  One hundred, two hundred years from now, will these prints still exist?  If someone still has possession of the glass negatives, from plates that would have been used in large format cameras placed on tripods, apertures often deliberately stopped down to keep everything in the picture plane in focus, we would have even stronger evidence, more credible testimony.  Hopefully, the glass plate negatives were not broken, like the storefronts windows of so many Jews on Kristallnacht, marking for many the beginning of the tragic end so clearly evidenced by these haunting documents.

"Never Again" hasn't held up

Never again hasn’t held up. Eighteen years ago, I was a senior, preparing for graduation, eating at McDonald’s before going to my after school job. I can remember reading in the Kansas City Star articles about two tribes in Rwanda, the Hutu and Tutsi. It sticks out to me because it was so difficult in my mind to keep the two straight. This stays with me because I teach Rwanda in my Sociology class. Of all the genocides that the United States has failed to react to in time to prevent, this is the one that drives me. So, I share with you some text resources that I believe will help you better understand the conflict.

 

First off, in my opinion, the best overview piece on 20^th century genocide is by Samantha Power. Her book, A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide, is a chilling critique of America’s failures to take action to prevent genocides. Her sweep is incredible. Her first four chapters deal with the creation of the term genocide and the ramifications it should hold from a legal and government perspective. Once she has established the international role in identifying and prosecuting genocide through the United Nations, she delves into specific areas where the United States failed to act. If you teach genocide at all, you must read her first several chapters to fully appreciate the history of the term and the international response to the Holocaust.

Power’s chapter on Rwanda deals largely with the American bureaucracy and its attempt to shift responsibility. There is no hero in her book as the American government, still stinging from a media failure in Mogadishu, doesn’t properly address the issue in Rwanda. Her book does not provide one with an effective background and this chapter can be cumbersome to those seeking to personalize the actions. For a government course, though, her writing demonstrates the shaping of policy and the role of the bureaucracy in carrying out the action, or inaction, of a government and its leadership.

In contrast, Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil is the story of a Canadian general put in command of the UN force sent to Rwanda to act as mediators of the peace accords (Arusha Agreement) that presaged the genocide. This book should not be read as an introduction to the genocide, but instead as a memoir and a personal journey of one unable to do enough. Dallaire’s memoir spends the first chapter building up his personal history and how he came to Africa. Another large portion of the book is dedicated to the politics played between the two sides as he attempts to build a government under the new agreement. Not until chapter ten do we read of the spark that ignites the powder keg that he has built for us. It is at this point that the memoir pays off and the reader realizes that all his words to this point were an attempt to build a picture and to cleanse his soul. This tale is deeply personal for the general and he makes it very clear how much of himself he put into the mission, but the real story is not about him. He does not ask for sympathy but his words ring with so many signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that one can’t cut his story out of his recounting. Rather than being a distanced critique of the events, the failures of governments to act and of a detached westerner, instead, this is the story of a proud man brought to his knees and crippled by his lack of ability to do his duty. This story cannot be taken in snippets. There is no section that can be lifted without losing the power of his entire ordeal. The book is over five-hundred pages, and at times can drag. But, it is also deeply personal. Put together with the book by Power, a westerner (First Worlder, North American, European) gains insight into the failures of man to take care of his brother. There is no rainbow at the end of either book and instead, both leave the reader feeling distraught and angry. Or they should.

The third selection, Philip Gourevitch’s We wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with our Families, is a collection of stories told by a reporter who went to Rwanda a year after the genocide. He visits the sites of the massacre, tells the stories of the survivors, and personalizes the event, as best he can. He was not there when it happened. Instead, as a reporter, he enters and tells the story of the Rwanda that survived. Not an easy read, and again, he lays the out responsibility for continuing failures on the major western powers, especially the United States. With this book at the end of the other two, one gains as close as one can get to a full perspective of the events. It’s interesting that all three are written by westerners for westerners.

 

Personally, I don’t like highly personalized stories. It has never been my interest to read biographies. That continues through this final story. As a Catholic school teacher, though, I must offer up two more books that shed light on the Rwanda genocide, and I would only recommend these after reading at least one of the previous three I have mentioned. You must have a big picture perspective of the events in Rwanda before attempting to tackle personalized stories of those in it.

Left to Tell is the story of Immaculée Ilibagiza and her survival in a bathroom protected by a family. Her story is very much a tale of her religious devotion and a faith journey. The Catholic bishops in the United States have been quick to sweep her up as a face of faith. Rwanda was approximately 95% Christian when the genocide broke out. This crime was committed not by outsiders but by self-identified believers.

Only after understanding fully the overview of the genocide in Rwanda, and the role of religion in the region, should one chance to pick up Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Churches. This book is a collection of essays from different authors dealing with the role of religion in the genocide. This is not an easy read, both because of its scholarly nature, but also because it demands questions be asked of the faithful that are not comfortable. Too often we have a tendency to cut off those who don’t agree with us. It is too easy to deny their faith, and claim that ours is the correct one. Too often, we separate ourselves from the perpetrators reflexively, but this book challenges a very deep tenet. Does religion make us a better person? Do we shift responsibility for our actions too often to a higher power (god) and to what consequences? It would be too easy to write off the Rwanda genocide as crazy Africans - child-like primitives, Christians in name only (rote, cafeteria, surface), or some other schema that makes them “the other”.

How many Rwandan lives are worth one American life? That is a good question, because 800,000 Rwandans died while no Americans did. I go back to the Primo Levi poem, Shema. “Whether it be a curse or a question, there is no question that it is a call to action that too many of us ignore.”

Concept of the "other"

I teach Sociology, as well as American history. Teaching an elective allows me the freedom to stretch my wings and look at standard history from different angles and through different prisms. I have become enchanted with the concept of “the other.” “The other” is anyone who is not like you. We all create a concept of the “the other” in our heads. When we group ourselves with like-minded people, whether based on performed race, economic status, performed gender, or countless other divisions, we band together because of some form of commonality. We find those whose values we share in some way. We join with others who reinforce our beliefs. Those who don’t share our beliefs are in one way “the other.” It is difficult for us to see the world through the eyes of “the other.” We assume that those we agree with view the world with the same eyes we do, those that don’t must not have anything in common with us. When we walk into a crowded room of people we don’t know, we look for someone that we assume is like us. It is a survival mechanism and quite natural. But it is also very base. By choosing others that we think will share our interests, we are pushing away those that don’t look like they will “get” us, hence we lump them up as “the other.” (As a point of clarification, in Sociology, we discuss the fact that we are all performers, acting out a role. We perform our gender to varying levels: hyper masculinity, as seen on football teams; hyper-femininity, as witnessed on the cheer or dance squads or in modeling; Eminem is a white man who performs black culture. President Obama has been derided as a black man who “acts” white. While culture is somewhat fluid, we must understand that we all “perform” or “act” out certain traits that we wish to personify to fit in to a group. As a white male, I perform to standards that are beyond my control as a father, teacher, role model, and husband.)

When I am teaching the concept of the development of racism to a predominantly Caucasian student base, I explain the difficulty in doing cruel things to someone that I may see as a potential mate, sister, daughter, mother, etc. When I look in the mirror, or at a family portrait, is this someone that could ever be a part of that? If yes, the bar is higher, and it is more difficult for me to minimize their feelings, to do them harm. If the answer is no, though, it is much easier to act without regard to them. They are the embodiment of whatever I am not. The Kansas City Star ran an article about slavery several years ago. In a part of that article, a historian said that if it hadn’t been for African slavery, the English colonists would have enslaved the Irish. I disagree from a sociological perspective. The Irish, with white skin, would not have faced the same brutality or lasted as long in bondage as did blacks. A good history teacher will take me to task on that and describe the conditions in Ireland at the time and the cruelty inflicted. Which will bring me to my next point: The concept of “the other” works best when you have a clear, visible, physiological/physical difference that can be exploited. It can be extrapolated to neighborhoods, class, religion, or any number of culturally created cleavages. Once these cleavages have been identified, they are often exploited.

Building on Dr. Gregory Stanton’s “Eight Stages of Genocide”, we can see the development of "the other" is a process of dehumanization. As much as we attempt to say that we respect all equally, often we place our concept, our values, our norms on others, assuming that what we hold true must be universal. When others don’t share those views, we can marginalize the target. The process of dehumanization is a slippery slope, and we too often engage in it without realizing. It is our duty to help our students guard against this process in everyday life through examples from the past.

New Lesson Plans

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is pleased to announce the addition of several new lesson plans to it's website at www.mchekc.org/lessonplans. Written by members of the Isak Federman Holocaust Teaching Cadre, these lessons explore relevant connections between the Holocaust and at least one other modern genocide. The lessons added to date are:

·         Bystanders in the Holocaust and Rwanda
This lesson explores testimony of bystanders to the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide. It encourages students to understand what it means to be a bystander and to refrain from being one in the future.

·         Document Based Question on Resistance in the Holocaust and Rwanda
This document based question explores resistance in both the Holocaust and Rwanda. It is designed to allow students to practice all the necessary DBQ skills while learning about the Holocaust. Approaches to deconstructing the DBQ and utilizing the documents in other settings are explored.

·         Children's Genocide Diaries - Bitton-Jackson and Zlata's Diaries
Utilizing the memoir I Have Lived A Thousand Years (Holocaust) and Zlata's Diary (Bosnia), this lesson plan allows students to analyze and explore the impact of genocide on children.

·         Children's Genocide Diaries - Sierakowiak and Zlata's Diaries
Utilizing The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak (Holocaust) and Zlata's Diary (Bosnia), this lesson plan allows students to analyze and explore the impact of genocide on children.

·         Children of Genocide: Communicating Through Art
This lesson plan helps students analyze art created by children during the Holocaust and the genocide in Darfur.

·         Connecting a Holocaust Memoir Study to Modern Genocides
This lesson plan helps students make relevant connections amongst genocides by utilizing first hand testimony of genocide survivors and witnesses at the conclusion of any Holocaust memoir study.

·         Propaganda in the Holocaust and Rwanda
This unit explores propaganda utilized by a variety of media outlets in both the Holocaust and Rwanda. It was specifically designed to help middle school students learn about the elements of propaganda and their effective use, but has wide applications in high school and history settings.

Witness to Genocide: The Children of Rwanda

In a recent class (one of a series sponsored by MCHE entitled Relating the Holocaust to Other Genocides: A Seminar Series for Educators), a fellow cadre member Dianne O’Bryan shared drawings from Witness to Genocide. I had been preparing a lesson for the class comparing/contrasting the artwork of children from Terezin with the artwork of children from Darfur. I decided to explore the children’s art from Rwanda as shown in this book.

As a middle school English teacher, I looked for resources that were engaging, historically relevant, and easily adapted for use in one or two class periods to enhance our study of the Holocaust. Witness to Genocide provides two short introductory pieces, one by Hillary Clinton and one by Richard Salem, that can be used to generate student discussion about the importance of sharing the story of the genocide in Rwanda and to show how art can be used as testimony and healing.

The three main sections in the book (The Genocide, The Children, and The Future of Rwanda) tell the history of the genocide the effects of trauma on children, and the importance of remembering as these children face the future. The captioned artwork supplements the text and acts as witness testimony and a healing process for the children. The simple, yet powerful drawings will engage those who see them and will encourage students to learn about the past and ways to help secure a better future for these children and other victims of traumatic experiences.

Witness to Genocide is available in the resource center at MCHE. Supporting lesson plans can be found at http://www.mchekc.org/lessonplans.

Extending your unit to talk about the Rwandan Genocide

In 2005, I was looking for a movie to watch at Blockbuster. There was a case on the bottom shelf that caught my eye. I picked it up, read a little, and took it home. I watched it alone, on a Friday night, and couldn’t look away. Sometimes in April is an overview of the Rwanda genocide, told in a didactic format jumping between 1994 and 2004. When I first watched it, there were no major Hollywood stars to distract me. I grew up well after Debra Winger had peaked. In 2011, Idris Elba did a season of The Office, but still plays his role so convincingly, that you lose yourself in him. Without recognizable stars, you can truly focus on the story.

Having watched Hotel Rwanda, and having read up on the genocide from different perspectives, I felt I understood the man on the ground story of the genocide. Sometimes in April goes so far beyond that. Our protagonist is a Hutu married to a Tutsi. The use of the radio to spread propaganda and enlist the masses is explored effectively. The relationship of Rwanda to other nations, including France, Belgium, the United States, and China is also explored in this film.

Sometimes does a great job of covering all of the big details of the genocide. It is critical that any instructor choosing to show this film does some research on the events of the genocide. This movie does an incredible job of covering all the major aspects of the Rwanda from a macro perspective. Doing some research into the background, the American reaction to the killings, and the United Nations reactions will allow a viewer to extend the lessons further.

Rwanda was a society divided between two major tribes: Hutu and Tutsi. The movie does a good job of explaining the historical complications between the two, caused in large part by European colonial powers. The ongoing conflict in Rwanda is discussed, and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), a militia force in exile, attempting to drive the Hutu heavy government out. The role of Belgium and France in allowing weapons (machetes) to be imported from China in incredible numbers, providing support to the government in power, and providing refuge to the government when things went south are all documented. Rwanda was 95% Christian at the time of the genocide, and the role of the churches in the genocide are touched on. American news stories covering cultural events of the day are contrasted with the escalating violence in Rwanda. The internal debates at the Department of State are explored. The International Court Tribunals in Arusha present both the positive and negative of Europeans in Rwanda. As the RPF enters and the massacres die down, the attempt to prosecute the criminals and the attempt to move forward as a nation are shown. Graphically, this movie is fairly tame, but psychologically, it takes the viewer to a much heavier level.

What makes this film so powerful is that it does not leave you feeling uplifted. In the end, 800,000 people were killed. Paul Rusesabagina did all he could to save so many, but at the end of Hotel Rwanda, one feels a sense of relief that he saved so many. At the end of Sometimes in April, you don’t get to walk away feeling satiated. Questions the movie raises are answered, but it is a bitter pill. The inaction of the American government during the genocide, and the further failure to stop the perpetrators from fleeing into refugee camps in neighboring countries raises new questions. This makes an incredible wrap up to a study of the Rwanda genocide and America’s current involvement in Libya and the Ivory Coast. Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF as they entered in 1994, was just reelected for a second seven-year term as president of Rwanda. This is still an incredibly current issue, that has wide ranging extensions in current events.

When we begin our studies, I read aloud, and discuss the meaning behind Primo Levi’s poem, “Shema”. I think this is a powerful tool to create a sense of urgency in the students. We must not allow this to happen again. I end the poem by telling them that they can no longer claim ignorance, and that it is now on them to be active and involved in world issues. Gregory Stanton’s “Eight Stages of Genocide” is available in a slideshow format, as well, and a great asset to anyone with the time to teach genocide issues. We have a limited amount of time to spend in the classroom on genocide, but it is incredibly topical. As we grow into a global community, we must be aware that our neighbors are no longer so far away. With the news out of the Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, and Egypt, we must not turn our eyes away. Instead, we must seek out information from a neutral source, and call on our politicians to do what is right and just. We must act morally and ethically, and not shy away from the hard choices. American presidents should be held to a foreign policy standard by an educated voting population, and that becomes our responsibility. An educated population should determine if American foreign policy should extend to humanitarian action or if American military force should only be used in the defense of tangible American interests. As for me, it would seem to be in our best interest, as the most powerful nation on Earth, to stand up for the meek, and act in a just way. American failure in Rwanda jeopardizes future American actions. We must never forget.

Children in the Holocaust and genocide

My 8^th graders have just finished studying the ghettos of Poland with emphasis on the Lodz ghetto. I had them view a documentary entitled The Lodz Ghetto which I found at the resource center at the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education. This video was divided into 4 parts with discussion questions for each one. This gave my students a great introduction and overview of the ghettos. I would certainly recommend this video for classes either to be seen in its entirety or in parts.
 

The next reading selection for my class will be Surviving Hitler. It is a memoir written by Andrea Warren about the experiences of Jack Mandelbaum, a local Holocaust survivor. There is a curriculum unit which can be found on the MCHE website which is very good. My past students gave great reviews on this book. They seemed to especially connect with the fact the Mr. Mandelbaum is from the Kansas City area. Of course, they all want to meet him after reading his memoir.

I will be ending my Holocaust unit with a lesson comparing and contrasting the diaries of two young people. The students will read excerpts from the Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, a young man who lived in the Lodz ghetto and the diary of Zlata Filipovic, who lived in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. This lesson is designed to connect lessons learned from the Holocaust with what has happened in the world since the end of World War II. I used this lesson last year and it was a success.

Defining a "crime without a name"

“But, what difference can I really make? I am just one person.”

As a secondary social studies teacher, I hear this comment a lot. When we look at the sheer numbers of those lost in 20th century genocides, it can feel overwhelming. What can any individual do to stop so much destruction? And, so, too often, we allow ourselves to turn a blind eye. Instead, we can stress the power of one person to shape how we think of these actions. We can encourage our students to be the voice to label the “crime without a name.” (Winston Churchill labeled the actions of the Nazis in Europe in the early days of World War II as such in a radio address dated August 24, 1941)

What can one person do? They can name the crime and bring international attention. They can petition and raise awareness. They can raise their voice in the din, and refuse to remain silent. The term genocide was developed by Raphael Lemkin. The term derives from the Greek word genos for family or tribe, and the suffix cide, which translates from the Latin as to kill. Lemkin had an interest in language and had even studied linguistics at university. He sought to identify what he felt was a crime to which no law had been written. Lemkin created the term genocide to mean “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” (Taken from the Preface of Axis Rule in Occupied Europe)

Lemkin was at university when another young man sought to avenge his people. Soghomon Tehlirian was a survivor of the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. One of the main planners of this action was Mehmed Talaat. Tehlirian approached Talaat on the streets of Berlin, raising a pistol and ending a single life. The assassin would stand trial for murder, while Talaat was seen to be the victim. The attention paid to the trial brought up questions surrounding the Armenian genocide, and the motives behind Tehlirian’s actions. Lemkin asked a professor at the time why Tehlirian stood trial for murdering one man, while Talaat never faced a jury for killing millions. His professor explained it in terms of state sovereignty. What a sovereign nation does to its own people is no other nation’s business. No international law allowed one country to enter another country to punish crimes against citizens of the primary nation. Only Turkey could punish Talaat for his actions, and they had no interest in resurrecting the past.

Lemkin studied law, and began practicing, while retaining his interest in the Armenian massacres. As Hitler’s ambitions grew, Lemkin grew more concerned. With the invasion of Poland in 1939, Lemkin fled to Soviet-occupied territory and eventually to the United States. He worked hard to publicize his creation of the term genocide, and sought recognition for crimes against humanity. In 1944, he published his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. While aimed at exposing Nazi brutalities in occupied territories, Lemkin paid special attention to those without a voice - dedicating an entire chapter to the issue of genocide and a world response.

When the United Nations is founded following the Second World War, Lemkin worked tirelessly to create a legal binding definition of genocide. In December of 1948, after years of work, the United Nations ratified a convention to identify and punish genocide. One man’s dream of bringing justice to the voiceless millions who suffered under the actions of their own governments was finally being realized.

Now, the responsibility falls on the shoulders of all of us. One man acted to define a crime. Now it is on us to see it through and demand action from our governments when we see it. The next time your students ask what one person can do, tell them the story of Raphael Lemkin .