Items related to Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin

Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin - Hardcover

Lemkin, Raphael; Frieze, Donna–lee

 
9780300186963: Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0300186967 ISBN 13: 9780300186963
Publisher: Yale University Press, 2013

Synopsis

The never-before published autobiography of Raphael Lemkin, a giant among twentieth-century ethical thinkers

Among the greatest intellectual heroes of modern times, Raphael Lemkin lived an extraordinary life of struggle and hardship, yet altered international law and redefined the world’s understanding of group rights. He invented the concept and word “genocide” and propelled the idea into international legal status. An uncommonly creative pioneer in ethical thought, he twice was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although Lemkin died alone and in poverty, he left behind a model for a life of activism, a legacy of major contributions to international law, and―not least―an unpublished autobiography. Presented here for the first time is his own account of his life, from his boyhood on a small farm in Poland with his Jewish parents, to his perilous escape from Nazi Europe, through his arrival in the United States and rise to influence as an academic, thinker, and revered lawyer of international criminal law.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), US jurist and Holocaust survivor, served as adviser to the U.S. War Department during World War II and played a crucial role in the discussions leading to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Donna-Lee Frieze taught a graduate unit on genocide at Deakin University in Melbourne, lectures frequently on the Holocaust and genocide, and is a 2013 Prins Foundation Senior Scholar at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. She has digitized Lemkin’s entire autobiography, the original of which is held in the New York Public Library.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Totally Unofficial

The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin

By Donna-Lee Frieze

Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 2013 Donna-Lee Frieze
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-300-18696-3

Contents

Acknowledgments............................................................vii
introduction. The "Insistent Prophet," by Donna-Lee Frieze.................ix
Preface....................................................................1
ONE. Early Years...........................................................3
TWO. The Flight, 1939......................................................25
THREE. The Flight, 1939–1940...............................................41
FOUR. A Refugee in Lithuania, Latvia, and Sweden...........................60
FIVE. From Sweden to the United States.....................................79
SIX. First Impressions of America: April–June 1941.........................98
SEVEN. Alerting the World to Genocide......................................112
EIGHT. The Birth of the Convention.........................................118
NINE. Geneva, 1948.........................................................133
TEN. Paris, 1948...........................................................150
ELEVEN. Climbing a Mountain Again..........................................180
TWELVE. Nearing the End....................................................219
Appendixes.................................................................223
Notes......................................................................241
Bibliography...............................................................267
Index......................................................................277

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Early Years


I WAS BORN IN A PART of the world historically known as Lithuania orWhite Russia, where Poles, Russians (or, rather, White Russians), andJews had lived together for many centuries. They disliked each other andeven fought, but in spite of this turmoil they shared a deep love for theirtowns, hills, and rivers. It was a feeling of common destiny that preventedthem from destroying one another completely. This area wasbetween ethnographic Poland to the west, East Prussia to the north,Ukraine to the south, and Great Russia to the east.

The Russians and Poles had fought for centuries for political supremacyin this area, while the Jews struggled for bare survival. A commonproverb among the Jews went, "When three persons are in one bedunder a common blanket, and when the man to the right pulls theblanket to himself, while the man to the left does likewise, the man inthe middle is sure of being covered by the blanket."

I lived my first ten years on a farm called Ozerisko, fourteen milesfrom the city of Wolkowysk. The city was named after two brigands,Wolk and Wysk. In the seventeenth century these two men controlled avillage built within a huge forest. From this village they led the people torob and kill travelers and tradesmen. Wolk and Wysk were ultimatelycaught and hanged. But this ignominy did not prevent them from perpetuatingthemselves, if modestly, on the map of the world.

The city built on the site of their murderous exploits was later connectedwith many historic events. The Swedish and Napoleonic armiesmarched through it, and innumerable skirmishes took place there betweenthe Russians and the Poles, Lithuanians and Ukrainians, and,earlier, between the Mongols and the Tartars.

Ozerisko lay in a large clearing between huge forests. It was a jointtenancy of two families, my father's and my uncle's. We children, whowere mostly of the same age, spent our days together in one happy gang.When our parents were busy on the farm, especially in the summermonths, the children escaped the control of eight parental eyes and hadfull freedom to explore and play in every corner of the farm.

Summer days on the farm started at sunrise. The alarm was givenwith amazing regularity by the roosters. They led the farm in its dailyresurrection from oblivious sleep to the rhythm of toil. The earth wasfresh from the chill of the night and silvery with dew. The animalsbreakfasted fast. The cows were prevented from kicking during the earlymilking by directing their personal attention to food. The fields againreceived their guests for the day: the farmhands and shepherds, sheep,horses, and cows. We were not permitted to get up so early, but from thewindows we regularly watched the exodus of our friends. We were somuch part of them that we could not miss this great moment.

When the timidity of the early sun changed to a bright flush of livinggold, we ran to join the workers in the fields. Ahead of us was our friendand faithful companion, a dog called Riabczyk. He was all white exceptfor a black button nose. He kept us company from early morning tonight. Dogs usually absorb the moods of children more easily than thoseof adults. They integrate themselves forcefully into the lives of childrenbecause of the latter's spontaneity. Our dog always seemed to adjust hismovements to the rhythm of our life. Sometimes it seemed to us that wewere jumping with his feet or barking with his friendly voice. The dogand we were one.

This harmonious flow of busy happiness was sometimes interruptedby disasters. One day Riabczyk followed a rider on a horse who waspassing on the road behind our farm. For some reason he started to barkat him. Then we suddenly heard a shot from the side of the road. Thedog came running to us with a bleeding mouth. After several days ofgroaning, Riabczyk died. We cried bitterly, carried him to the top of ahill, and buried him at a spot we could see from our windows.

Although the farmhands treated us like nuisances, they missed uswhen we were not around. Occasionally they got help from us. We lovedto listen to the metallic whisper of the swinging scythes and to the sighsof the clover and rye falling like wounded heroes. The workers used tolaugh at our screams when we hurt our bare feet on the sharp stubs of thecut rye.

At noon, when the sun was in the middle of the sky, work stopped forluncheon and rest. The food was meager: black bread, raw onions, potatopudding, and sometimes cold tea or water. Then, within a minute,the farmhands' tired heads would fall on bundles of rye in heavy sleep.We watched how the sun would play on their noses and how they struggledthrough their sleep with fleas trying to enter their open mouths.While they were sleeping we jumped to the horses having their luncheonof grass. What fun we had stroking their thighs and plunging ourfingers into their manes. If we were lucky we could gently caress onehorse's silky nose. The horse would answer with a look of tender detachment,by sneezing or raising his ears. We were then sure he had returnedour friendship.

Another outlet for our energies was riding horses. We were not permittedto disturb the farmhands during their day work. But at sunset wejoined the workers in the fields, when they were ready to return to thefarms. I remember with pride that I was three years old when I first rode ahorse. My playmates argued that I was too small for this heroic sport. Ifelt humiliated and resented this inequality. I could not wait endlessly togrow up. I bribed myself into my first horse ride by offering a croissant toour farmhand. He ate the croissant with one hand and used the otherhand to put me on the back of the white horse. I grabbed its mane andthe world around me started to move as fast as a whirlpool. The sun wasshining in my eyes. I saw nothing but the neck of the horse. When Iapproached the farm and the stables, my frightened mother and ourbarking dogs greeted me. Then I descended the horse, having achievedmuch cherished equality with my playmates. As I continued to ride thewhite horse every day, the feeling of joy deepened. I looked with pridefrom the horse downward at the earth, and my perception of the worldunconsciously gained a new dimension.

The climax of farm life was the return of the entire animal world atsunset. The farm received each of us like a loving mother. First came thesheep and the cows, in a serious procession, some still chewing a lastmouthful of grass. When the impatient shepherd put the sheep to run,the whole herd would descend upon the farm in a cloud of dust.

The first duty of the evening was to care for the thirsty. We, the happygang of children, busily helped water the animals. The water was pouredfrom buckets lifted by hand from the well. I can never forget how intenselythey drank. It was as if new life was entering every part of theirbodies. Their nostrils were enlarged and their eyes fixed as they suckedthe water into their necks. There is a difference in the quenching ofthirst between men and animals. Usually a man drinks when he wants,but an animal drinks when man wants it to drink. Desperate thirst existsalways with animals, and fulfillment is overwhelming.

Several years later, in Paris, I was reminded of this difference when Isaw the sketch by Daumier called "They Are Thirsty." It consists of twoparts. In the upper part, men are drinking coffee in a Parisian cafe. Theyhold their cups nonchalantly and their faces express a blasé indifference.In the lower part, a worker and a horse are drinking directly from astream with absorbing intensity.

The reception for our four-legged friends was like a huge cocktailparty, crowded and noisy, all the animals clamoring for attention underthe caresses of a sinking sun. Its rays set afire the windows of our house ortossed playful reflections on the horn of a cow or the shining steel ofscythes put to rest. The doors of the stables were wide open, sendingsmells of manure and sweat into the evening air. The cows and horseswere then driven into the stable for food and rest.


Image of Entirety

The adult population of the farm, lost in their daily chores, didn't realizehow beautiful it all was. They saw only the part they touched with theirhands and senses. But we were hungry to see all the marvels of our worldat once. We climbed to the tops of trees and hay carts. When the hay andthe clover was brought from the fields to be put into the hay barns, werode on top of the mountainous carts. From there we could see thedistant outskirts of the fields, the neighboring villages, and the roads.The joy of conquering space from the vantage point of a hay top wasequaled only by the enchantment of the smell of hay and fresh clover.

Another way to look at the world from above was to climb trees.When the cherry season arrived we almost lived in the trees, like birds.We hid from our parents between the leaves. Who could resist thedarkening fullness of a ripe cherry smiling alluringly from the greenleaves? From the top we could see the dark green potato fields or thechallenging yellow greeting of a carpet of flowers in the grass fields. Theroads looked to us like wrinkles on a dear face and the forest like hair onthe head of a giant.


The Forest

The forest was the heart of the farm. A great part of our food, likemushrooms, blackberries and raspberries, nuts and game, came from it.It sustained life on the farm by providing wood for fuel. In the winter, itreplaced the warmth of the sun.

Many roads and paths led from the farm to the forest. We used each ofthem. To us little children, and especially to me, it was a place of a thousandmiracles to be discovered every day, with more left over for tomorrow.

The trees were ancient and so broad in their trunks that sometimes ittook the joined hands of five or six children to encircle them. When wethus felt our hearts pressed against the trunk of an oak, it was like listeningto his secret and giving him our own. I especially liked the smallclearings in the forest where shadows struggled with the jumping rays ofthe sun. This constant fight made green carpets on the green underbrush.Here we would find discreet mushrooms and timidly hiddenraspberries, between the oaks and nuts growing on winding underbrush.What a joy it was to spy a bundle of nuts growing closely together highup, and then plan the strategy of bending the branches close to ourgrasping hands.

The ground of the forest was covered with dried leaves and pineneedles, a ready-made bed for tired heads of child explorers, hungry fordreams. This was the world that gave me my first lessons in solitude.From an early age I took a special delight in being alone, so that I couldthink and feel without disturbance. At that time I did not understand themeaning and purpose of this feeling, but I fully enjoyed the delight ofcontemplation. Away from my companions, I spent hours in the forestlistening through my third ear to how the story of life was sung by thesparrows, robins, crows, and blackbirds, the innumerable mosquitoesand insects. Though they played discordant instruments, they still producedharmonious melodies.


The Lake

On one end of the farm was a lake that slept peacefully in the summer inthe shade of a row of white birches. To us children this lake exercised thespecial attraction of a tale begun and never ended. When we looked atthe water and couldn't see the bottom, we felt that this lake held amystery that it wouldn't reveal to us. On this lake we used to build bargeswith my brothers and playmates.

The barges were small, but when we were on top of them they appearedhuge to us. We moved them by leaning on long sticks placed intothe mud beneath the water. We played pirates, modern Vikings conqueringforeign lands and castles that we built lavishly in our imagination.

On top of the rafts we felt like grown-ups. This desire to prove that wewere doing things like adults was with us most of the day.

Once I put on my new trousers for our seafaring and fell into thewater. It was my first spanking, by my mother, who in principle did notbelieve in violence. Apparently she wanted to save her son from futuregallows, as Dr. Samuel Johnson's teacher said when he spanked hispupil.


Birch Tree

Somewhere between our house and the lake stood a lonely birch, leaningin the summer against a rye field. The birches on our farm, especially thisone, had a special quality of containing and giving a white, aromaticjuice. Sometimes it ran down the trunk into the soil. We would make alittle hole in the trunk and soon see it fill with juice. We used straws todrink its lemonade. I was especially enamored of this birch. I used to liefor hours on the grass under its shadows after having quenched my thirst.To me the birch was more than a tree. I loved her dearly and was sorrywhen she got into trouble with the elements of nature. I watched from ourhouse as she bravely defied the onslaughts of storms and lightning andstood half naked during the winter. Many years later, when I was searchingfor strength in the recollections of my youth, I wrote the followingpoem: [Poem not included.]


Stealing

In a larger sense, the world of nature is one. Nature does not care whyman has divided the rye field or the loam between two owners, or why heput down stones to mark a line of ownership. The same flowers grow onboth sides of the property line, and the same sky, sun, and rain coverthem. Children follow nature. While renting out the farm to our parents,the farm's owner retained for himself two fruit gardens and left to usonly some fruit trees scattered over the farm. When summer came, thefull ripeness of the black cherries, the juicy yellow pears and apples inboth gardens exercised a powerful attraction upon us. Merely noticingthat the gardens were empty was enough to send us jumping on the treesand plucking the fruit. Our parents pleaded with us to stop this mischief.We were caught several times by the aggrieved owner, sometimes at thevery moment when our hands were stretching out for an alluring cherryor plum. This prohibition, we felt, was against nature. We simply couldnot look indifferently through the fence at the fruit, and we succumbedto our temptation.

In one of the gardens we removed a plank in the fence behind a bush.Through this hole we slipped inside. My heart was beating fast, and myhead was almost dizzy with a feeling of danger. But my eye was already caressingthe voluptuous fullness of a pear or an apple. One instant—the appleswere already plucked and put quickly into our hats, which we woreespecially for this. Then we ran to the hole in the fence. Our faces shonewith excitement. I distinctly remember that this danger of stealing touchedoff waves of pleasure, quickening my pulse and firing my imagination.

I was, I think, three or four years old when I joined my playmates inthe raids on the gardens. Despite my inclination for loneliness, I joinedthe raids because I wanted this excitement and equality. I was the youngestand had to fight my way up for the right to play on an equal footing.Participation in the fruit raids was the price I paid for acceptance.

One day my parents broached the subject. My father told me and myelder brother that stealing is forbidden by God, and God would punishus. I wondered how God could see what we were doing, but then it wasexplained that he sees everything. It was not, however, until we started toread and were shown the words in the Bible, "Do not steal," that webelieved the prohibition was true. Originally we thought our parents wereinventing another prohibition, like the one against driving barges. Ourraids stopped: there was no way of preventing God from seeing us. Theremust have been symbolic power in the written words of the prohibition.


The Harvest

The labors of the summer culminated in the ceremony celebrating theharvest. On this memorable occasion the workers were served vodka andsausages in abundance. They drank and sang. The women put garlandsof blue field flowers in their hair. A belt was made of rye, and each year adifferent person was chosen as the king of the harvest, around whom thebelt was tied. Later, everyone danced around the "king." I rememberthat once I was given this honor. It was so abrupt that I stood blushingand almost burst into tears from happiness. The entire community wasone song, one joy, and one big pride.


Children of Farmhands

We not only played on our farm but performed useful tasks. One of ouractivities, performed with great solemnity, was the selection of chickensfor egg-laying. Every chicken had to be examined by introducing a fingerinto a discreet part of her body to ascertain whether she was expected tolay an egg during the night. This was usually done by our mother or one ofthe female workers. After the examination, we carried the expectant chick–ensto a separate barn and put them in the straw. Next morning we collectedthe delicate rosy eggs from the barn and brought them into the house.

Another task and great joy was planting potatoes. These first had to becut in such a way that every part would have a bud on its skin. When theplanting started, we followed behind the plow with baskets in our handsand put pieces of potatoes at equal intervals in the freshly dug furrow.On the next turn the plow produced another furrow while the newlyturned earth fell and covered the potato seeds we had just planted. It wassimple but it bore witness to an iron logic in nature that made the earththe chief nutritionist of mankind, from time immemorial.


(Continues...)
Excerpted from Totally Unofficial by Donna-Lee Frieze. Copyright © 2013 by Donna-Lee Frieze. Excerpted by permission of Yale UNIVERSITY PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Yale University Press
Publication date
2013
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0300186967
ISBN 13 
9780300186963
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
288