Susan's Reviews > East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"

In this book , author Phillippe Sands looks back to the city of Lviv, known as Lemberg (as well as many other names) and located variously in the Austro Hungarian Empire, Poland, occupied by the Soviets and, after 1944, part of Ukraine. Lviv, or Lemberg, was home to three men before the Second World War. One was the author’s grandfather, Leon Buchholz. Another was Hersch Lauterpacht, a professor of International Law, born in Zolkiew, near Lemberg in 1877. The last was Rafael Lemkin, a professor and lawyer, born in 1900. Also, linked in to these men’s histories is Hans Frank, who spent two days in Lemberg in August, 1942.

The author’s grandfather never spoke of his time during the war, but Sands carefully unravels those years in this wonderful book and asks the questions he wishes he had asked his grandfather while he was still alive. Why did Leon travel to Paris, from Vienna, without his wife and daughter? Who was the woman who travelled with his, then infant, mother through a war-torn Europe? What happened to his family, left behind in Lemberg? When invited by the law faculty of the University of Lviv to deliver a lecture on his work involving crimes against humanity, he takes the chance to visit his grandfather’s birthplace and investigate the events of that time and of the Neuremberg trials.

He intersperses the stories of his grandfather’s life with those of Lauterpacht and Lemkin. During the Neuremberg trials, Lauterpacht was part of the British prosecution team, while Lemkin was part of the American prosecution team. The two men changed international law, with the idea of ‘War Crimes’ and, in particular, the inclusion of ‘Crimes against Humanity’ and the idea of individual criminal responsibility and the protection of the individual. A new legal order emerged from those war trials; although Lemkin was personally distressed by the silence on ‘genocide’ and the fact that crimes before the war were ignored.

It may sound as though a book on legal issues is dry, but that is certainly not the case. This is a fascinating look at family histories and of how the lives of these two legal experts were entwined with the history of those war years. The coincidences are, at times, quite stunning. For example, while living in Vienna in the early 1920’s, Lauterpacht helped organise a dormitory for Jewish students, which was run by the housekeeper; a young woman called Paula Hitler, whose brother visited in 1921.

Hans Frank was the governor of the territory that included Lemberg. During the Neuremberg trials, both Lauterpacht and Lemkin had family from that area, whose fate was still unknown. For them, these trials could never be a distant, or academic, exercise. On trial, was a man who was responsible for the fate of their own families. During this book, Sands visits the courtroom where Frank was on trial, with his son, Niklas Frank. Of course, Niklas Frank was just a child at the time, but his thoughts are quite moving and you see clearly that there were victims on all sides; as there always are in war. This was a moving, well written and excellent book which I recommend highly. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.