Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.
Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide in 1944. His analysis of atrocities inflicted on the Poles were adopted by the UN Genocide Convention as its criteria for determining "genocidal intent"
Aftermath of the 1941 Odessa massacre, in which Jewish deportees were killed outside Brizula (now Podilsk) during the Holocaust
Members of the Sonderkommando burn corpses of Jews in pits at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, an extermination camp.
As part of the Native American genocide, the U.S. federal government promoted bison hunting for various reasons, including as a way of destroying the means of survival of Plains Indians to pressure them to remain on Indian reservations.
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent who is known for coining the term genocide and campaigning to establish the Genocide Convention. During the Second World War, he campaigned vigorously to raise international outrage against atrocities in Axis-occupied Europe. It was during this time that Lemkin coined the term "genocide" to describe Nazi Germany's extermination policies against Jews and Poles.
Raphael Lemkin
2008 plaque commemorating Lemkin's pre-war residence, 6 Kredytowa Street, Warsaw, Poland
Dedication by Lemkin in "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe" to Max Huber, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross
