News
Raphael Lemkin Seminar
The third Raphael Lemkin Seminar—organized by the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust at the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, The Raphael Lemkin Center for the Prevention of Genocide, and the Holocaust Research Center at the Jagiellonian University—has come to an end.
Taking place from 20 to 27 of June, the seminar is intended for professors and lecturers from all military schools, educating the officers of the US Military and NATO. Among the 35 participants of the seminar and tour of the former Auschwitz Concentration Camp, were lecturers from West Points, Fort Leavenworth, The Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation, as well as from the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Raphael Lemkin SeminarThe lecturers included, among others: Dr. James Waller from Keene State College of New Hampshire, Dr. Piotr Setkiewicz the Manager of the Research Department at the State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ms. Norul Rashid from the Office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General for Genocide Prevention. Subjects of the lectures included: the definition and history of genocide, responsibility to protect against genocide, the psychology of the perpetrators, the role of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in the mass murder of European Jews, and the diplomatic and economic methods of preventing crimes of genocide.
The seminars dealing with the crime of genocide and its prevention are planned to take place three times annually. Their goal is to highlight the problem of genocide and its political, economic, and humanitarian consequences. The seiminar is the brainchild of New York philanthropist Fred Schwartz who also finances the endevor.
Raphael Lemkin Center for Genocide Prevention was created by The Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation [AIPR]. It was established to connect the leaders of the world involved in preventing genocide and armed conflict.
Raphael Lemkin, who the seminar is named after, was a pre-War Polish Jewish lawyer and creator of the term “Genocide”. During the War, he was able to get to the United States. Adopted in 1948, the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was created largely thanks to the efforts of the international community as a response to the crimes of the Holocaust. The intention of its authors was to prevent future mass murder. Meanwhile, events in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur show that after 65 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, humanity has failed to draw lessons from the crimes of the Second World War.
