Winston Churchill declared during World War II in late 1941 that the Nazis were committing a “nameless crime.” The jurist and humanist Raphael Lemkin dedicated himself to finding an appropriate term for these acts of human barbarism.
Edited by Irmtrud Wojak and Joaquín González Ibáñez.
ISBN: ISBN 978-3-9817614-3-6“Without Order. The autobiography of Raphael Lemkin tells about the life of this extraordinary figure in the history of the 20th century, a man of moral imagination and civic conviction who proved to us that the search for justice and the protection of human rights are not entelechy. Raphael Lemkin’s intense, unusual life story reflects the history of Europe under the tremors of the 20th century and shows the pursuit of a spirit of universal humanity. True to Tolstoy’s maxim that “to believe in an idea requires living it,” Lemkin made the realization of his idea his life’s purpose.
“Lemkin was one of those game-changing prophets who wanted to warn the Allies, especially the democratic powers, that the belligerent expansion toward Eastern Europe involved a program of annihilation of human peoples, the scale of which was unprecedented in history. (…) Since man will continue to succumb to the temptations of despotism, the search for scapegoats and the criminalization of entire communities, his concern is our concern. Unfortunately, there is little danger that the word invented by Raphael Lemkin will be forgotten.”
– Antonio Muñoz Molina
Raphael Lemkin, Without a Mission. Autobiography. Text by Donna-Lee Frieze. Translated by Stephanie Arzinger. Edited by Irmtrud Wojak and Joaquín González Ibáñez. BUXUS EDITION 2020, 421 p., Series: Literature and Human Rights, ISBN 978-3-9817614-3-6