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Description of  Messengers of Disaster: Raphael Lemkin, Jan Karski, and Twentieth-Century Genocides (George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas)

Leading up to World War II, two Polish men witnessed the targeted extermination of Jews under Adolf Hitler and the German Reich before the reality of the Holocaust was widely known. Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term "genocide," and Jan Karski, a Catholic member of the Polish resistance, independently shared this knowledge with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Having heard false rumors of wartime atrocities before, the leaders met the messengers with disbelief and inaction, leading to the eventual murder of more than six million people. Read more