Editing Genocide (section)

== Origins ==
[[File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising BW.jpg|thumb|[[The Holocaust]] heavily influences the popular understanding of genocide, as [[mass killing]] of innocent people based on their ethnic identity.{{sfn|Moses|2023|p=19}}{{sfn|Shaw|2015|loc=Conclusion of Chapter 4}}]]

Polish-Jewish lawyer [[Raphael Lemkin]] coined the term ''genocide'' between 1941 and 1943.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=7}}{{sfn|Kiernan|2023|p=2}} Lemkin's coinage [[hybrid word|combined]] the [[Ancient Greek language|Greek]] word {{lang|grc|[[genos|γένος]]}} ({{lang|grc-Latn|genos}}, "race, people") with the [[Latin]] [[suffix]] {{lang|la|-caedo}} ("act of killing").{{sfn |Irvin-Erickson |2023|p=14}} He submitted the manuscript for his book ''[[Axis Rule in Occupied Europe]]'' to the publisher in early 1942 and it was published in 1944 as [[the Holocaust]] was coming to light outside Europe.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=7}} Lemkin's proposal was more ambitious than simply outlawing this type of mass slaughter. He also thought that the law against genocide could promote more tolerant and [[Plural society|pluralistic]] societies.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=14}} His response to Nazi criminality was sharply different from that of another international law scholar, [[Hersch Lauterpacht]], who argued that it was essential to protect individuals from atrocities whether or not they were targeted as members of a group.{{sfn|Ochab|Alton|2022|pp=19–20}}

According to Lemkin, the central definition of genocide was "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" in which its members were not targeted as individuals, but rather as members of the group. The objectives of genocide "would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups".{{sfn|Bachman|2022|p=48}} These were not separate crimes but different aspects of the same genocidal process.{{sfn|Shaw|2015|p=39}} Lemkin's definition of nation was sufficiently broad to apply to nearly any type of human collectivity, even one based on a trivial characteristic.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=15}} He saw genocide as an inherently colonial process, and in his later writings analyzed what he described as the colonial genocides occurring within European overseas territories as well as the Soviet and Nazi empires.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=14}} Furthermore, his definition of genocidal acts, which was to replace the national pattern of the victim with that of the perpetrator, was much broader than the five types enumerated in the Genocide Convention.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=14}} Lemkin considered genocide to have occurred since the beginning of human history and dated the efforts to criminalize it to the Spanish critics of colonial excesses [[Francisco de Vitoria]] and [[Bartolomé de Las Casas]].{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|p=11}} The 1946 judgement against [[Arthur Greiser]] issued by a Polish court was the first legal verdict that mentioned the term, using Lemkin's original definition.{{sfn|Irvin-Erickson|2023|pp=7–8}}