Today, Leon is eighty-four years old and suffers from macular degeneration. It’s be- come quite difficult for him to read and write as he can only see out of the corner of his eyes. He can no longer drive, and it’s hard for him to get around. He has asked me to articulate his thoughts about why it was so important to give his testimony while he can. First, Leon wants to honor the memory of all the victims of the Holocaust, especially his father, mother, four sisters, and infant brother who were gassed in the Belzec death camp, September 1st to 3rd, 1942. The best way he knows how to do that is to tell the world what he knows about it. Second, Leon wants to honor each and every person who saved his life—and there are many of them whom you will come to know in the pages that follow. Third and foremost, he would like to see something good come from this book. He has already succeeded in performing a public service for posterity. Yet, if you ask Leon, he will say that the best thing that could happen from this book is if it encourages lead- ers of national and international institutions and organizations to enact laws that will make it possible to indict, apprehend, extradite and try persons who advocate or incite genocide—before the killing starts. Under current international law, war criminals can be prosecuted after the fact, but by then it is already too late. The UN Convention against Genocide is 50 years old. Since that time the world has experienced a mind-boggling number of new genocidal and ethnic cleansing campaigns, at least 34 separate events killing at least 12 million people. Only a few of the perpetrators have ever been brought to justice. These figures exclude mass deaths from war, disease, or famine. The Rome accords of 2002 have led to the new International Criminal Court with the power to prosecute crimes against humanity. Most scholars of international law have concluded that incitement to com- mit genocide is illegal under customary international law, but the ICC has not issued a formal opinion endorsing that theory and creating binding legal precedent. Whether the ICC will deter future acts of genocide has never been tested. The record of intentional institutions thus far has been dismal. We can hope that someday humans will have evolved beyond their capacity to dehumanize one another, but until that hap- pens, we can only hope Leon’s dream will become a reality. Reading Leon’s testimony, you will notice that the full panoply of human vice and virtue are on display, and not always attached to the good guys or bad guys respectively. You’ll encounter Jewish police and kapos, every bit as repugnant as their Nazi overseers. This point is crucial because it demonstrates convincingly that no race or nationality has a monopoly on virtue, which is another way of saying that any one of us could find
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