George N. Shirinian
Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs holds the Aaron Aronov Endowed Chair of
Judaic Studies and is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the
University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa. An ordained rabbi, Professor Jacobs is
a specialist on the Holocaust and Genocide, Biblical Studies,
Jewish-Jewish Christian Relations, and is one of the foremost
authorities on Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), who coined the term
“genocide” and devoted his life to the enactment of an international law
on the punishment and prevention of genocide.
Among his numerous publications, Prof. Jacobs is the author of the
chapter entitled, “Lemkin on Three Genocides: Comparing His Writings on
the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Genocides,” in the recently published
book, Genocide in the Ottoman Empire: Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks
1913-1923, edited by George N. Shirinian (New York and Oxford: Berghahn
Books, 2017, published in association with The Asia Minor and Pontos
Hellenic Research Center and The Zoryan Institute).
George N. Shirinian: Your unique contribution to this new book is a
comparative study of the writings of Raphael Lemkin on Armenian,
Assyrian, and Greek Genocides. Who was Raphael Lemkin, and why is what
he wrote important?
Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs: Lemkin (1900-1959) was a Polish Jewish
lawyer who immigrated to the United States after the Nazi invasion of
Poland in 1939. His initial concerns during his teenage years with the
gross inhumanity of groups of people in power to groups having little or
none led him to a concern with international criminal law. After
arriving in the US, he taught law at both Duke University and Yale
University before joining the US Board of Economic Advisors in
Washington, DC, and would later serve as an advisor to Justice post-WWII
International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg, Germany, dealing with
Nazi war criminals. He would devote the remaining thirteen years of his
life to seeking the ultimately-successful ratification of the Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by the United
Nations in December 1948. His coinage of the word “genocide” appeared
in his magnum opus Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation,
Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Washington, DC: Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, 1944), specifically Chapter 9 (pgs.
79-94). It is somewhat ironic that this small chapter in this massive
volume of almost 650 pages became his life’s work.
His voluminous writings, and even a television appearance, on the
subject of genocide brought the concept of mega-group murder to the
attention of the world community of scholars, intellectuals, and the
wider public, and began a debate about its various permutations and
configurations which continues to this day. All this affirms him as the
“Father of Genocide Studies,” an outgrowth and expansion of the field of
Holocaust Studies.
GS: Lemkin wrote at a time when the study of the Ottoman destruction
of the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks was in its infancy. What sources
did he use? Did he say anything that historians today find useful?
SLJ: In addition to his 1944 text, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe,
Lemkin also intended to publish a three-volume History of Genocide
(Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern Times), as well as a monograph,
Introduction to the Study of Genocide. Neither was completed nor
published. In 2012, it was my good fortune to edit, introduce, and bring
to publication both sets of texts, even though incomplete, in one
volume, titled Lemkin on Genocide (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books). As to
his use of sources, it is important to keep in mind that Lemkin was a
master of many languages—Polish, Russian, French, German, Hebrew,
Yiddish (and others!)—and was thus able to draw upon numerous
publications in those languages which addressed the thirteen genocides
included. Most of the sixty-three genocides reflected in his Outline
were never addressed. An in depth examination of more than 20,000 pages
of his archives only barely hints at these other texts. Lemkin left a
substantial, untitled, 120-page monograph on the Armenian Genocide,
along with a six-page summary, and the monograph has been published
(Raphael Lemkin’s Dossier on the Armenian Genocide, Glendale, CA: Center
for Armenian Remembrance, 2008). I have written several articles about
Lemkin and the Armenian Genocide. As regards the Assyrian Genocide, not
one but two chapters—Chapter 2 (“Assyrian Invasions”) of Volume I, and
Chapter 2 (“Assyrians in Iraq”) of Volume III—are included among his
papers. The latter constitutes a forty-two-page chapter in Lemkin on
Genocide. Most interesting of all, however, with regard to the Greek
Genocide, five chapters are presented in the outline, more than any
other case. These are titled, “Genocide in Ancient Greece”, “Genocide
against the Greeks,” “Greeks under Franks, “Greeks in Exile from Turkish
Occupation,” and “Genocide by the Greeks against the Turks.”
Unfortunately, none of these is found among his papers. Instead, what we
do have are a large text of so-called “Background” of fifty-seven pages
and a later edited and slightly smaller version (fifty-five pages)
entitled “Greeks in the Ottoman Empire,” the title of which is not
listed in the outline. Three additional chapters in Volume III—“Bulgaria
under the Turks,” “Genocide by the Janissaries,” and “Smyrna”—would
have proven most helpful regarding his thinking about both the Ottoman
Empire and the post-Ottoman Kemalist regime. But, alas, they, too, are
not found among his papers, and, in all likelihood, were never written.
One chapter that does exist is on the massacre of Greeks in Chios during
the Greek War of Independence. It constitutes six pages in Lemkin on
Genocide. I have also written separately on Lemkin and the Genocide of
the Greeks.
To historians today, not only are his bibliographies of value in
visiting the various genocides he examined, but his historical
summaries, comments and critiques regarding victims, perpetrators, and
bystanders enlarge the work beyond simply that of reporting the past.
Moreover, Lemkin broadened his concerns to include the arenas of
morality, ethics, and practical and political responsibilities, with
which we continually wrestle today.
GS: Your new article deals with Lemkin’s writings on three cases of
genocide. What benefits are there, generally, to taking a comparative
approach?
SLJ: In principle, comparative work begins with an open mind:
bringing together two or more seemingly disparate cases, events, or
people and looking not only for similarities but differences as well,
and then expanding the search to include other scenarios as well. What
can, ideally, result is a broadened perspective and understanding
regarding those items under examination, and, further, their possible
applicability as additional case studies are brought into the
conversation. It is important to keep in mind that comparison is not the
only tool that scholars bring to the table. Vetting historical
documents, knowledge of specific languages and how they were understood
at the time of their use, interviewing witnesses to contemporary events
(and vetting the accuracy of their memories) are also used to ascertain
the most accurate and complete pictures of those things under
investigation. All tools used by various disciplines in the “human
sciences” (history, literature, psychology, sociology, religious &
Judaic studies, etc.) have, over the generations, proven their value in
examining the past, and even going so far as to proving their
applicability to both the present and the future.
GS: In this specific case of Raphael Lemkin, what has a comparative approach revealed?
SLJ: Strictly speaking, Lemkin was not a comparativist. He was of
that “first” generation of historians, writers, and thinkers who saw as
his task to “get the word out,” that is to say, present the evidence of
those cases of genocide that were of importance to him—together with his
own commentaries—and then let others expand the cases and draw further
conclusions. His “mission,” if you will, was to get the world—at least
the Western world—to view group murder in a whole new way, based on the
reality that genocide has, historically, always been part of the human
journey. His objective was to make others realize that it was not only
the present moment (World War II and the Nazi murder of the Jews and its
initial aftermath) that were genocidal, but, throughout human history,
human power groups have engaged in genocide against non-power groups for
a whole host of reasons (political, social, religious, economic,
etc.).In doing so, Lemkin opened the door to this “darker side” of human
history, and for that he is to be applauded. Additionally, it must also
be noted that Lemkin was not a classically-trained historian, but,
rather, a lawyer who saw his stage as that of international law. Scholar
that he was, he filtered his work through the lens of its practical
applicability, understanding law and its prosecutorial opportunities as
the appropriate arena where past crimes could be evaluated, current
perpetrators could be punished, and, ideally, future cases of genocide
could be prevented.
GS: Lemkin is famous for coining the word “genocide” and providing
the first comprehensive definition of it. Did he doubt that the term
applies equally to the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks?
SLJ: Most assuredly he understood these three cases as genocide.
Today, there are three sources of denial that they are genocide. One
originates with the inheritor of the perpetrator Ottoman state, which
seeks to evade any responsibility for past crimes, and those who support
it for political or economic reasons. The second originates from what
sociologists call “the competition of victims.” This refers to the
tendency of some victim groups to want to make their genocide seem more
important by denying status to others. The third originates with some
genocide scholars, who are so caught up in narrowly defining what
genocide is, that they lose sight of the impact on the survivors and
their descendants. It is part of the work of scholars to define and
categorize the events they/we study, and to expand and/or contract these
same definitions, further refining similarities and differences, as
they/we apply them to specific case studies. In the process, however, we
must never lose sight of our humanity.
GS: Is there any reason for anyone today to doubt that the term applies equally to the Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks?
SLJ: Not at all. My contribution to Genocide in the Ottoman Empire
was to examine in depth, perhaps for the first time, Lemkin’s writings
on these three genocides—Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek—what he wrote,
what he saw as their similarities and differences, and fault not only
the Turks but the Germans and British, as well, as uneven partners in
these crimes. Certainly, Lemkin saw parallels between genocide in the
Ottoman Empire and that in Nazi Germany.
"The National Herald," July 12, 2017
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