East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"

by Philippe Sands

They shared what little information they had about events in Wołkowysk. “My father, Elias, found out there were only a few Jews remaining when the Soviets came in the summer of 1944, maybe no more than fifty or sixty.” A repetition of events in Żółkiew and Dubno and tens of thousands of other places small and large across central Europe, reflected in the stones of Treblinka. Saul spoke gently about this subject, but the light in his eyes was dimmed. “The rest, we knew what happened to them. A Jew sent us a letter. My grandparents were taken to an unknown destination. They were dead.” Did Saul have a photograph of Bella and Josef? No. He learned that the last transport from Wołkowysk was in January 1943 to Auschwitz, but it was an earlier transport that took his grandparents to another place, not far away. “Bella and Josef went to Treblinka, because it wasn’t far away.” He spoke these words with much sadness, a weary and deep sadness, and then he perked up. “What’s the name of that famous journalist, the one who wrote Life and Fate?” he asked. Vasily Grossman. “That’s it; he’s the one who wrote about Treblinka. I read it and thought of my grandparents.” Saul believed that Uncle Rafael never knew they went to Treblinka. “That information came only later, long after he was gone.” Saul’s account offered a frame of sorts for another story. In this way did I learn that my grandmother Malke Flaschner, who lived in Żółkiew on the same street as the Lauterpachts, had died in Trebli...