A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power Page A
Authors: Samantha Power
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, History, 20th Century, Political Science, Holocaust, Violence in Society, International Relations, International Security, Political Freedom & Security, Genocide
Ads: Link
dispatched to a friend, the minister of justice in Sweden.2' As he awaited notification from the Swedish consulate, he visited with various Jewish intellectuals around town. None planned to leave.
The life of the vagrant was not agreeing with Lemkin. Although his acquaintances were generous, he felt his personality "disintegrate" as apathy set in. "There were three things I wanted to avoid in my life: to wear eyeglasses, to lose my hair, and to become a refugee," he wrote. "Now all these three things have come to me in implacable succession"" He busied himself by buying a dictionary and learning Lithuanian from the daily newspa per. But only the arrival of a package from his publisher in France cheered him up. The publisher enclosed galleys of his latest book on international finance regulations, as well as copies of Lemkin's 1933 draft law banning acts of barbarity and vandalism. In his newfound free time, the lawyer immediately set out to improve them.
Lemkin's request for refuge was granted, and he traveled to neutral Sweden by ship in February 1940. He was able to lecture in Swedish after just five months, an achievement he credited with enabling him to "rise spiritually from the `refugee' fall of modern man..""While lecturing on international law at the University of Stockholm, he began assembling the legal decrees the Nazis had issued in each of the countries they occupied. He relied upon a corporation whose legal affairs he had once managed from Warsaw-as well as Swedish embassies around Europe, Red Cross delegations, and German occupation radio-to gather the official gazettes from any branches that remained open in the occupied countries. In compiling these laws, Lemkin hoped he would be able to demonstrate the sinister ways in which law could be used to propagate hate and incite murder. He also hoped decrees and ordinances in the Nazis' own words would serve as "objective and irrefutable evidence" for the legions of disbelievers in what he called the "blind world."24
Lemkin was desperate to leave the libraries of neutral Stockholm and get to the United States, which he had idealized. Thanks to a professor at Duke University with whom he had once translated the Polish criminal code into English, Lemkin secured an appointment to the Duke faculty to teach international law. He flew to Moscow, took the Trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok, and then picked up a small boat, which he and the other refugees called the "floating coffin," to the Japanese port ofTsuruga. He then took a bigger boat frorYokohama to Vancouver and on to Seattle, the U.S. port of entry, where he landed on April 18, 1941.
A New Beginning, an Old Crusade
Lemkin traveled by train to North Carolina, marking the end of what had been a 14,000-mile journey. The evening he arrived, he was asked to deliver a speech at a dinner with the university president. Without preparation or a full command of English, Lemkin urged Americans to do as Ambassador Morgenthau had done for the Armenians. "If women, chil dren, and old people would be murdered a hundred miles from here," Lemkin asked, "wouldn't you run to help? Then why do you stop this decision of your heart when the distance is 3,000 miles instead of a hundred?"2 This was the first of hundreds of speeches Lenikin gave around the state. He bought himself a white suit, white shoes, white socks, and a dark silk tie for his appearances before chambers of commerce, women's groups, and colleges. Members of the audiences approached Lemkin after his talks and apologized for America's reluctance to join the fight against Hitler.
While at Duke, Lemkin received a letter from his parents on a scrap of paper a quarter the size of a regular sheet. "We are well," the letter read. "We hope you are happy. We are thinking of you " Several days later, on June 24, 1941, he heard a radio broadcaster announce that the German army had declared war on the Soviet Union, abrogating the MolotovRibbentrop pact that had divided
The life of the vagrant was not agreeing with Lemkin. Although his acquaintances were generous, he felt his personality "disintegrate" as apathy set in. "There were three things I wanted to avoid in my life: to wear eyeglasses, to lose my hair, and to become a refugee," he wrote. "Now all these three things have come to me in implacable succession"" He busied himself by buying a dictionary and learning Lithuanian from the daily newspa per. But only the arrival of a package from his publisher in France cheered him up. The publisher enclosed galleys of his latest book on international finance regulations, as well as copies of Lemkin's 1933 draft law banning acts of barbarity and vandalism. In his newfound free time, the lawyer immediately set out to improve them.
Lemkin's request for refuge was granted, and he traveled to neutral Sweden by ship in February 1940. He was able to lecture in Swedish after just five months, an achievement he credited with enabling him to "rise spiritually from the `refugee' fall of modern man..""While lecturing on international law at the University of Stockholm, he began assembling the legal decrees the Nazis had issued in each of the countries they occupied. He relied upon a corporation whose legal affairs he had once managed from Warsaw-as well as Swedish embassies around Europe, Red Cross delegations, and German occupation radio-to gather the official gazettes from any branches that remained open in the occupied countries. In compiling these laws, Lemkin hoped he would be able to demonstrate the sinister ways in which law could be used to propagate hate and incite murder. He also hoped decrees and ordinances in the Nazis' own words would serve as "objective and irrefutable evidence" for the legions of disbelievers in what he called the "blind world."24
Lemkin was desperate to leave the libraries of neutral Stockholm and get to the United States, which he had idealized. Thanks to a professor at Duke University with whom he had once translated the Polish criminal code into English, Lemkin secured an appointment to the Duke faculty to teach international law. He flew to Moscow, took the Trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok, and then picked up a small boat, which he and the other refugees called the "floating coffin," to the Japanese port ofTsuruga. He then took a bigger boat frorYokohama to Vancouver and on to Seattle, the U.S. port of entry, where he landed on April 18, 1941.
A New Beginning, an Old Crusade
Lemkin traveled by train to North Carolina, marking the end of what had been a 14,000-mile journey. The evening he arrived, he was asked to deliver a speech at a dinner with the university president. Without preparation or a full command of English, Lemkin urged Americans to do as Ambassador Morgenthau had done for the Armenians. "If women, chil dren, and old people would be murdered a hundred miles from here," Lemkin asked, "wouldn't you run to help? Then why do you stop this decision of your heart when the distance is 3,000 miles instead of a hundred?"2 This was the first of hundreds of speeches Lenikin gave around the state. He bought himself a white suit, white shoes, white socks, and a dark silk tie for his appearances before chambers of commerce, women's groups, and colleges. Members of the audiences approached Lemkin after his talks and apologized for America's reluctance to join the fight against Hitler.
While at Duke, Lemkin received a letter from his parents on a scrap of paper a quarter the size of a regular sheet. "We are well," the letter read. "We hope you are happy. We are thinking of you " Several days later, on June 24, 1941, he heard a radio broadcaster announce that the German army had declared war on the Soviet Union, abrogating the MolotovRibbentrop pact that had divided
Similar Books
