I watched this incredibly important film recently. The images of current day genocides fired me up… the film focuses on Darfur and Sudan, and al-Bashir is still at liberty! Kosovo looked like the 1940’s, only in color. It is about the word “genocide,” the lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, who brought the word to international attention, and those who fought for genocide prevention, the “watchers in the sky.”

Their site has advice for how to get involved in genocide prevention on any level.

From the film’s site: 

As a young Jewish lawyer in Poland, Lemkin watched Hitler’s rise to power with grave concern. In 1933, believing “a law” could stop Hitler, Lemkin submitted a proposal to the 5th International Conference for the Unification of Criminal Law (Lemkin’s “Madrid Report”).  The proposal sought to outlaw the “premeditated destruction of racial, religious or social collectives.” Lemkin’s attempt to warn the international community was dismissed – his rationale virtually ignored.

Unable to convince his parents of the severity of the situation, Lemkin fled Poland alone in 1941 and made his way to America. He lost 49 members of his family to Nazi concentration camps.

Winston’s Churchill’s suggestion that “we are in the presence of a crime without a name” in 1941, was a call to action for Lemkin. He immediately set out to find a word to appropriately describe the horrific nature of mass atrocities. Working furiously, Lemkin believed if he could create a word – if he could give “the crime” a name – the international community would be able to stop “the crime”. Lemkin settled on “genocide” by combining the Greek word “geno”, meaning group or families, with the Latin word “cide”, meaning killing.