ABSTRACT
April 1941 marked the beginning of a new stage in Lemkin’s life. He traveled from Seattle, via Chicago, to Durham, a town in North Carolina. He was hired at the university and given a modest salary. Lemkin continued to compile materials pertaining to the German occupation policy and was trying to popularize the knowledge of what was taking place in Europe. In the summer of 1942 (in June or July), Lemkin took up a post at the Economic Defense Board, and then at its successor, the US Board of Economic Warfare within Foreign Economic Administration in Washington. It afforded him access to information pertaining to the occupation policies of Axis powers and allowed him to expand his collection of documents. Lemkin had concluded that the Americans were not aware that the Axis strove to exterminate people. In 1942, Lemkin decided to turn directly to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who recommended patience, which in practice meant coming to terms with the unfolding genocide.
