genocide

From a young age, Raphael Lemkin was interested in mass murders (POWERS). He found himself asking for details on historical cases of mass slaughter. What intrigued him was how frequent these mass murders were happening and how impunity coldly relied upon by the guilty (POWERS). Raphael Lemkin was fascinated by a newspaper article that the Armenians had let the Talaat go unpunished for the massacre(POWERS 17) . At this time there was no law for someone who killed a group of people. This is one of the reasons Raphael Lemkin was determined to come up with a word to describe this. State sovereignty was used to shield men who tried to wipe out an entire minority (POWERS 19). The Tehlirian was acquitted on the grounds of temporary insanity (POWERS 19). There was also the holocaust that helped Lemkin to study what he called genocide. In June 1942, nearly 700,000 Polish Jews and over one million Jews were killed throughout Europe (POWERS). His family was targeted because they were Polish Jews. Raphael Lemkin was more determined to make genocide a word because most of his family was missing except for his older brothers family.

Raphael Lemkin knew that these types of mass murders had to stop. He also knew that the perpetrators responsible for the killings had to be convicted. From time to time, it was proven that these mass murders would keep happening. With perpetrators getting away with these acts, it was possible for them to happen again. Raphael Lemkin made a law hinged on what he called universal repression that would outlaw the destruction of nations, races, and religious groups (POWERS 19). People would be able to be punished anywhere they are caught even if it was an international crime (POWERS 20). While working as a legal ...

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...ludes more qualifications of genocide such as, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions, imposing measures intended to prevent birth, and transferring children to different groups. This proves that murder does not have to be committed for it to be considered genocide. Also, the whole group doesn’t need to be killed.

On the other hand, Chalk and Jonassohn’s definition includes any group to be considered genocide because no groups were identified as a target. Their definition also focuses on physical destruction or annihilation of a defined group. Chalk and Jonassohn’s definition of genocide says “in which a state or authority intends to destroy a group” because they are specific about who is doing the killing rather than saying the perpetrator. Their definition also leaves out all of the United Nation’s qualifications that they consider to be called genocide.