Lemkin. Witness to the Age of Genocide - Instytut Pileckiego

Lemkin. Witness to the Age of Genocide

On 9 December 1948, the United Nations unanimously adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Thus, genocide was officially recognized as a crime under international law. Among those present in the Palace de Chaillot in Paris was the creator of the concept of “genocide” and the author of the draft of the Convention, Rafał Lemkin – a Polish lawyer of Jewish origin.

“Lemkin. Witness to the Age of Genocide” is the title of the first-ever exhibition in Poland, organized by the Pilecki Institute, to be devoted entirely to the person of Rafał Lemkin. Its opening coincided with the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which Lemkin considered as his life’s work. Warsaw, the city where he had had his legal practice and from which he fled before the advancing German forces in September 1939, suffered heavily from German crimes – the victims of which included both Jews and Poles – throughout the War, and this makes it a fitting location to speak about the life and achievements of Rafał Lemkin.

The exhibition was presented in Warsaw, at the UN headquarters in New York, in Bochum, in Berlin and at Valdosta University in the USA.