Lemkins Legacy

Abstract

Lemkin was working on an interdisciplinary publication on the history of genocide 1 , which was to off er a global perspective on its emergence over the centuries. Owing to this eff ort, he is recognized not just as the creator of the 1948 Convention, but also the father of genocide studies 2 , which defi ne the crime much more broadly than the convention does. The extant comprehensive materials which Lemkin had been gathering for the purposes of this synthetic account are currently dispersed across a number of archival collections 3 .* The text is the English version of the last chapter of the book Krajobrazy biografi czne Rafała Lemkina which did not appear in the English-language edition of the book. See: Krajobrazy biografi czne Rafała Lemkina, Instytut Pileckiego, Warszawa 2023. 1 According to Charlotte Kiechel, he fi rst applied for a grant to write the history of genocide in 1947. He was helped on this project by Gertrude Sladek and Miriam Millirien, as well as Anna May Barbour and an unidentifi ed woman referred to as "Biff y".