The word “genocide” was coined in 1941 by Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer from a Polish family, who combined the Greek word for a people (genos) and the Latin translation for killing (cide).

Raphael Lemkin’s single-minded dedication led to the adoption of the Genocide Convention, in 1948. Most of his family had been killed in the Holocaust.

Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word in 1943, as part of his lifelong campaign to make the world acknowledge and prosecute the crime. A new documentary, Watchers of the Sky, tells his story.

Lemkin was the first scholar to work out the logic of this jurisprudence. From its unremitting racial bias, he was able to understand, earlier than most, that the wholesale extermination of groups ...

Raphael Lemkin died penniless on a New York City street in 1959, but is now getting his due from Rutgers, the United Nations - and even the Sundance Film Festival. Skip to Article.

Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin Edited by Donna-Lee Frieze Yale University Press, 328 pages, $35. Ten years ago, Samantha Power won a Pulitzer Prize for her book “A ...

Raphael Lemkin, left, coined the term “genocide.” “Watchers of the Sky” explores his efforts and discusses the similar work of such figures as Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the ...

In 1953, Polish-American lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term "genocide," wrote a text titled Soviet Genocide in Ukraine. In it, Lemkin spoke not only about the Holodomor — the man ...

Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word in 1943, as part of his lifelong campaign to make the world acknowledge and prosecute the crime. A new documentary, Watchers of the Sky, tells his story.

One way to approach these dilemmas comes from the work of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish lawyer who coined the term genocide. He left behind a widely varied body of work when he died in 1959, ...