The term and concept of genocide were coined in 1943 by a lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, to describe the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis. They were first used in the indictment at the Nuremberg Trials in 1945 (a trial brought by the Allied powers against 24 of the leading officials of the Nazi regime).
Rafael Lemkin, a Polish Jew and specialist in international criminal law, coined the term “genocide” in 1943 to describe the destruction of a national group. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic annihilation of a group of people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion, with the aim of completely eradicating them, in the name of a racist principle or ideology.
During World War II, in January 1942, Nazi officials met at the Wannsee Conference to plan the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”—namely, the deportation and murder of Jews in all countries under Hitler’s Occupation.
The “Final Solution” was the final stage of the genocide of European Jews. It was part of the Nazis’ policy of exterminating the Jews.
The first victims were the Polish Jews following the German army’s invasion of their country in September 1939; they were massacred or confined to ghettos, where they were doomed to die despite their fierce Resistance.
In June 1941, the Wehrmacht (the Nazi army) invaded the USSR, including Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus, and had Jews murdered by mobile extermination units (Einsatzgruppen) during mass killings known as the “Shoah by bullets.”
Primarily in Eastern Europe, the extermination of the Jews accelerated and took on an industrial scale with the widespread use of gas. This genocide, known as the Holocaust or the Shoah, resulted in the extermination of 6 million people. It is distinguished by three key features:
- It is not limited to a single country but extends to dozens of countries—an entire continent, Europe—and is intended to spread to North Africa.
- It targets populations without a country and therefore without land to conquer.
- It is carried out according to a methodical, systematic, planned, and industrialized process.
Jews from all over occupied Europe were deported to killing centers (or extermination camps).
The Roma are also victims of this policy of extermination.
In 1958, the United Nations adopted the legal definition of genocide.
In France, genocide is punishable as a crime against L’Humanité. There is no statute of limitations for this crime.
Reference:
Bernard Bruneteau, 2016, A Century of Genocides, Armand Colin
