In 1933 Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the League of Nations conference on international criminal law in Madrid , for which he prepared an essay on the '' Crime of Barbarity '' as a crime against international law . The concept of the crime , which later evolved into the idea of genocide , was based on the Armenian Genocide and prompted by the experience of Assyrians massacred in Iraq during the 1933 Simele massacre . In 1934 Lemkin , under pressure from the Polish Foreign Minister for comments made at the Madrid conference , resigned his position and became a private solicitor in Warsaw . While in Warsaw , Lemkin attended numerous lectures organized by the Free Polish University , including the classes of Emil Stanisław Rappaport and Wacław Makowski
Simele massacre
Simele massacre
Raphael Lemkin