Ukrainian Jewish Heritage: East-West Street book review - Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio

EAST WEST STREET is at once a detective story, a courtroom procedural, and a heart-wrenching family saga. The book weaves together two stories—one personal, and the other public.

The author discovered in his research that two men—the jurists Rafael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht—had strong connections to Lviv. Both Lemkin and Lauterpacht came from similar Jewish backgrounds in the city. And both studied at the same law school and had the same teachers.

Lemkin and Lauterpacht are considered to be fathers of the modern human rights movement. Both men forged diametrically opposite and revolutionary concepts of humanitarian law. And these concepts—genocide and crimes against humanity—became the centerpiece for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals.

All modern legal cases on Crimes against Humanity and Genocide can be traced back to the precedent-setting Nuremberg Trial, a trial shaped by Lemkin and Lauterpacht.

The terms Crimes against Humanity and Genocide have now become part of the language of daily life in our times. They are a way of affixing a label of horror to an atrocity taking place somewhere in the world. But we must remember that these terms are invented. Invented by the two jurists from Lviv.

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