Holocaust

Genocide

Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. The term was coined by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin and defined by a UN convention in 1948.

The word genocide, from the Greek genos (race, tribe) and the Latin -cide (killing), was introduced in 1944 by the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in his book on Axis rule in occupied Europe, which analysed German policy towards the conquered nations. On 9 December 1948 the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which came into force in 1951.

The Convention lists five kinds of act: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children to another group. What decides is the intent to destroy the group as such, which is why the classification of some crimes, such as the Wola massacre or the Katyn massacre, remains disputed. The Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma were genocides.