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LAUTERPACHT’S LIFE WAS transformed by a secret decision taken by Archduke Wilhelm of Austria, the twenty-three-year-old “Red Prince,” one that would catalyze a bloody conflict between Poles and Ukrainians in Lemberg. This was in November 1918, four years after Leon had left for Vienna, when Wilhelm ordered Polish units of the Austro-Hungarian army to withdraw from Lemberg, replacing them with two Ukrainian regiments of Sich Riflemen. On November 1, the Ukrainians took control of Lviv and declared it the capital of the West Ukrainian People’s Republic, a new country.
Heavy fighting followed between Polish and Ukrainian factions, with Jews caught between the two, fearful of choosing the wrong side, the one that lost, opting for neutrality. The conflict continued beyond the armistice signed by Germany and the Allies on November 11, the day Poland declared independence. Bloodshed came to Teatralna Street, where the Lauterpachts lived, causing much damage to property. Lauterpacht’s school friend Joseph Roth (a namesake of the novelist born in nearby Brody) described the period that followed, days of “friction and conflict” as the Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrated. “To protect the Jewish population,” Roth explained, “a voluntary Jewish militia was organized.” It included Lauterpacht, who patrolled the Jewish quarters “day and night.”
Within a week, the Ukrainians had lost control to the Poles, and an agreement was reached to end the fighting. As Lviv became Lwów, looting and killing came to the streets.
I found a picture of a barricade, on the street where the Lauterpacht family would later live, dusted with a light fall of early snow. With this photograph, it was easier to imagine the events over those three days, described by The New York Times under the headline: “1,100 Jews Murdered in Lemberg Pogroms.” The words heaped pressure on President Woodrow Wilson to stop the bloodshed.
Barricade on Sykstuska Street, Lemberg, November 1918
Lauterpacht plowed on with his studies as these bloody events underscored the dangers for minority groups. Confronted by the harsh realities for tens of thousands of individuals caught up in a struggle between groups, and now a leader of the Organization of Zionist Academics in Galicia, he established a Jewish high school (gymnasium) and organized a boycott of Polish schools. Jewish youths could not “sit on the same benches with those who participated in the pogroms against Jews,” a friend of his explained.
The collapse of established authority unleashed a violent nationalism as the possibility of a new Polish or Ukrainian state came into view. Among the Jewish population, there were differing reactions. As the antinationalist community of Orthodox Jews hoped for a quiet life alongside the Poles and the Ukrainians, some argued for the creation of an independent Jewish state somewhere in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Others wanted greater autonomy for Jews in newly independent Poland, whereas for the Zionists nothing less than a separate Jewish state in Palestine would suffice.
Such issues of group identity and autonomy, along with the rise of nationalism and the emergence of new states after the end of World War I, combined to move the law to the center of the political stage. This was a new development in scale and scope. How might the law protect minorities? it was asked. What languages could they speak? Would they be able to educate their children in special schools? Such questions continue to resonate today around the world, but back then no international rules offered guidance on how to address them. Each country, old or new, was free to treat those who lived within its borders as it wished. International law offered few constraints on the majority’s treatment of minorities and no rights for individuals.
Lauterpacht’s intellectual development coincided with this crucial moment. Engaged in Zionist activity, he nevertheless feared nationalism. The philosopher Martin Buber, who lectured and lived in Lemberg, became an intellectual influence, opposing Zionism as a form of abhorrent nationalism and holding to the view that a Jewish state in Palestine would inevitably oppress the Arab inhabitants. Lauterpacht attended Buber’s lectures and found himself attracted to such ideas, identifying himself as a disciple of Buber’s. This was an early fluttering of skepticism about the power of the state.
In the meantime, classes at law school continued. Lauterpacht immersed himself in Professor Roman Longchamps de Bérier’s course on Austrian private law, even as Austria withered. Professor Makarewicz offered a daily lecture on Austrian criminal law, even as that law ceased to be applicable in Polish Lwów, giving the class a surreal air. Lauterpacht also took a first course on international law, taught in the autumn of 1918 by Dr. Józef Buzek, politically active in Vienna and about to become a member of the new Polish parliament. The classes must have underscored the marginality of the subject, at a university where discrimination was rife and individual professors were free to decide that Ukrainians and Jews were not permitted to attend their courses.
Lauterpacht imagined a move elsewhere, perhaps inspired by one of the books he listed in his notebook as having read. Ghetto Comedies, written by Israel Zangwill, whose face would soon appear on the cover of Time magazine, offered a collection of stories that touched on the glories of “Anglicization.” In “The Model of Sorrows,” Zangwill wrote the story of an innkeeper who left Russia for England because of the “intolerable” situation at home. Another story (“Holy Wedlock”) posed a question: “Would you not like to go and see Vienna?”