Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Annette Becker, Käthe Roth (Translated by)

$39.95

Publication Date: January 11th, 2022

Publisher:

University of Wisconsin Press

ISBN:

9780299333201

Pages:

304

Description

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.

About the Author

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.

Praise for Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

"An excellent book. . . . Challenges the deafness of the West."—Charlie Hebdo

"Exciting. . . . Well documented and well argued."—L'Histoire

"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

Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Description

About the Author

Praise for Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Other Books in Series

Surreal Geographies: A New History of Holocaust Consciousness (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Holocaust and the West German Historians: Historical Interpretation and Autobiographical Memory (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Cataclysms: A History of the Twentieth Century from Europe’s Edge (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Reason after Its Eclipse: On Late Critical Theory (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children's Rights (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children's Rights (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

La Grande Italia: The Rise and Fall of the Myth of the Nation in the Twentieth Century (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Confronting History: A Memoir (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Jews in Mussolini's Italy: From Equality to Persecution (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The “Jewish Question," the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Respectability and Violence: Military Values, Masculine Honor, and Italy’s Road to Mass Death (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Some Measure of Justice: The Holocaust Era Restitution Campaign of the 1990s (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Perils of Normalcy: George L. Mosse and the Remaking of Cultural History (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

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Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

A History of Italian Fascist Culture, 1922–1943 (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Fascination with the Persecutor: George L. Mosse and the Catastrophe of Modern Man (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

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Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Description

About the Author

Praise for Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Other Books in Series

Surreal Geographies: A New History of Holocaust Consciousness (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Holocaust and the West German Historians: Historical Interpretation and Autobiographical Memory (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Cataclysms: A History of the Twentieth Century from Europe’s Edge (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Reason after Its Eclipse: On Late Critical Theory (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children's Rights (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children's Rights (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

La Grande Italia: The Rise and Fall of the Myth of the Nation in the Twentieth Century (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Confronting History: A Memoir (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Jews in Mussolini's Italy: From Equality to Persecution (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The “Jewish Question," the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Respectability and Violence: Military Values, Masculine Honor, and Italy’s Road to Mass Death (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Some Measure of Justice: The Holocaust Era Restitution Campaign of the 1990s (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Of God and Gods: Egypt, Israel, and the Rise of Monotheism (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Perils of Normalcy: George L. Mosse and the Remaking of Cultural History (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

What History Tells: George L. Mosse and the Culture of Modern Europe (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Unlearning Eugenics: Sexuality, Reproduction, and Disability in Post-Nazi Europe (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

A History of Italian Fascist Culture, 1922–1943 (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Fascination with the Persecutor: George L. Mosse and the Catastrophe of Modern Man (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

The Invisible Jewish Budapest: Metropolitan Culture at the Fin de Siècle (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

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