Raphael. Ben. Samantha. Luis. Emmanuel. All are ordinary names for ordinary people who have one thing in common: an extraordinary desire to stop genocide.
As explored in Edet Belzberg's documentary Watchers of the Sky, all five individuals recognized that a single individual cannot stop the systematic murder of large groups of people due to their race, ethnicity, nationality, or religious belief. Yet they have all been compelled to do something. And they all share the conviction that genocide can be stopped, even as they acknowledge that it (probably) won't be within their lifetime.
Genocide has existed for centuries but it wasn't defined as such until the 20th century. The foundation was laid by Raphael Lemkin, born in 1900, who survived atrocities at a young age. Later, when he asked a legal authority about the slaughter of more than one million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks starting in 1915, he was told that what the Turks did was perfectly within their legal rights because it took place with the country's national boundaries, as if a farmer decided to slaughter all his chickens on his own ranch. Utterly rejecting this notion, Lemkin made it his life course to make such actions illegal. As the years passed, he determined that something new was needed to make his case, and coined the word "genocide."
Ben Ferencz served in the U.S. Army during World War II and took part in the liberation of Nazi death camps, which left a permanent scar. Two years later, however, he was recruited as a lawyer for the U.S. Army because of that experience, becoming the Chief Prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials. He became acquainted with Lemkin and, recognizing the power and truthfulness of the word "genocide," used it in the trial to define the charges against the defendants. It would be years more before the word became accepted, however, and even longer before it gained legal authority.
The life stories and experiences of Lemkin through to the 1950s are weaved together with those of Ferencz and others who are active today. Samantha Power, a new college graduate in 1992, was drawn to what was happening in Bosnia, and reported on the atrocities committed there. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Problem in Hell, served as inspiration for this film. She now serves as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Frankly, Watchers of the Sky is not an easy film to watch. Oh, director Belzberg eases into things, with starkly animated images and quotations from Raphael Lemkin floating across the screen. It's a very down-to-earth approach, keeping a balanced, calm tone as the full realization slowly dawns. And then the cumulative weight of the subject matter -- millions and millions of dead people, children raped, women tortured, families (literally) torn apart -- becomes nearly overwhelming.
But all is not lost, and much of that is due to the quiet courage displayed by the interview subjects. They are not superheroes, flying in to right the wrongs of mankind and then tucking back into bed. Nor do they pose themselves as heroes of any kind; there is no braying and bragging.
Rather, there is the growing realization that these people know that they are walking on a very long path. Maybe you'll be moved to join them; maybe not. In any event, they will keep walking and doing what they can, for the betterment of mankind.
The film is available to watch via various Video On Demand platforms as of Tuesday, February 24. It will also be available on DVD; bonus features include interviews with Lemkim family members, bonus footage, and deleted scenes. More information is available at the Music Box Films website.