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Messengers of Disaster
Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides
Annette Becker
Translated by Käthe Roth
George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas
Steven E. Aschheim, Skye Doney, Mary Louise Roberts, and David J. Sorkin, Series Editors
“An excellent book. . . . Challenges the deafness of the West.”
—Charlie Hebdo
“Exciting. . . . Well documented and well argued.”
—L’Histoire
Leading up to World War II, two Polish men witnessed the targeted extermination of Jews under Adolf Hitler and the German Reich before the reality of the Holocaust was widely known. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide,” and Jan Karski, a Catholic member of the Polish resistance, independently shared this knowledge with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Having heard false rumors of wartime atrocities before, the leaders met the messengers with disbelief and inaction, leading to the eventual murder of more than six million people.
Messengers of Disaster draws upon little-known texts from an array of archives, including the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva and the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen. Carrying the knowledge of disaster took a toll on Lemkin and Karski, but their work prepared the way for the United Nations to unanimously adopt the first human rights convention in 1948 and influenced the language we use to talk about genocide today. Annette Becker’s detailed study of these two important figures illuminates how distortions of fact can lead people to deny knowledge of what is happening in front of their own eyes.
Annette Becker is a professor of contemporary history at Paris–Nanterre La Défense and a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France.
Käthe Roth has been a literary translator with a specialty in historical nonfiction for more than thirty years.
Käthe Roth has been a literary translator with a specialty in historical nonfiction for more than thirty years.
Praise
“Very rich. . . . Enables us to better understand the most tragic part of the history of the twentieth century.”
—Le vif l’express
“Becker shows the impossibility of understanding that the extermination of the Jews was rooted in the moment of the invasion of Belgium by the German army in August 1914. . . . Even today, people remain incapable of seeing what they see.”
—Le Monde
“A seminal work of scholarship, well-translated from the French, and an important contribution for both genocide scholars and general readers. . . . Highly recommended.”
—CHOICE Reviews
“Intellectually satisfying and richly detailed. . . . It is the cry for prevention and for those who have perished that rings out. If what Karski and Lemkin did was not enough to shake the world into awareness, what is?”
—American Historical Review
“Masterful and insightful. . . . Becker has demonstrated the ability of individuals to make a difference for the betterment of all, and furthered our understanding of the inspiration legacies of Jan Karski and Raphael Lemkin.”
—Antisemitism Studies
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Larger images
November 2021
LC: 2021008855 HV
272 pp. 6 x 9
18 b/w illus.
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