CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

CYIL 15 ȍ2024Ȏ “RETOUR À LEMBERG”: COULD A COMICS EXPLAIN THE RESPONSE … many illustrations were based on the historical photographs. The images are all in black and white, which corresponds with the darkness of the recounted stories. The book also contains a rich annex with photographs of its main characters, so the reader can see how closely they were portrayed in the comics. Furthermore, I would argue that the genre of comics may be actually better in demonstrating the inhumanity of Holocaust than any written text. When I finished reading the book, two touching scenes stuck in my memory. The first one is from a train station in Vienna in July 1939, when the sister of Leon Buchholz is supposed to hand over her eleven years old daughter Herta to a British woman that would take her to Paris, together with one year old Ruth. While mother of Ruth sticks to the plan and puts her on the train to safety, mother of Herta is unable to let her daughter go. Both of them perish in Holocaust two years later. The second scene captures a famous witness testimony by Hermann Gräbe before the Nuremberg Tribunal, describing the murders of Jews by the SS Einsatzgruppe in Dubno. The death of the Jewish father and his small son is shown only through a picture of their hands, holding each other before their execution. The book contains, however, a few minor errors. In a picture describing the situation of Poland in 1919, there is a map that puts its Western border with Germany to the rivers of Oder-Neisse, which was established only after the Second World War. Fortunately, on other occasions, the reproductions of historical maps are used. Then there is an information about the signing of the German-Polish Declaration of Non-Aggression from January 26, 1934. Surprisingly, this is accompanied by the well-known picture of the signing ceremony of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact from August 23, 1939, with Stalin looking from behind. This picture clearly makes no sense in this particular place. To answer the question posed in the title of this review, there is no doubt that Jean Christophe Camus did his best to convert the book of Philippe Sands into a comics where the accompanying text must be quite concise. In spite of this necessary conversion, the main legal concepts put forward by Lauterpacht and Lemkin are still understandable to me - a person with legal education. Whether this would apply also to non-lawyers, remains a question, as I have not had the opportunity yet to “test” this book on one of my friends without legal education. Nevertheless, the format of comics clearly has its limits when more complex legal issues are presented, e.g. , the “semicolon issue” in the definition of crimes against humanity, resulting in restriction of jurisdiction of Nuremberg Tribunal to crimes committed only after the start of the Second World War. This part may be hard to understand without additional explanation even for lawyers. In conclusion, the outstanding comics “Retour à Lemberg” can be recommended to any Francophone reader interested in history of Holocaust and international criminal law. For those, who are English-speakers only or who wish to know more details and do not necessarily need the pictures, reading the original book of Philippe Sands is still an alternative. Petr Válek * * Mr. Petr Válek is the Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the Council of Europe. Prior to his current post, he served as the Director of the International Law Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (from 2012 to 2021) and in various legal positions in the Czech diplomatic service. His thanks go to Mr. Marek Zukal, Legal Adviser of the Czech Mission to the UN, for his valuable comments. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily correspond with the official position of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and do not bind this institution in any way.

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