In Memoriam of Helen Fein
Helen Fein passed away on May 14, 2022, surrounded by her husband Richard Fein, daughters and extended family. Helen held a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University and was a pioneer in genocide studies, as a scholar and activist. She was one of the founders and first president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Her landmark work Accounting for Genocide (University of Chicago, 1979) received the American Sociological Association’s Sorokin Award, cited as “a brilliantly original interpretation of a complex and singular process, that has until now defied comprehensive social analysis.” Her rigorous application of historical sociology on issues related to collective violence, genocide, and other atrocities continued over the decades. Her books and numerous articles were cited for their originality and “incisive analysis,” including, “Denying Genocide: From Armenia to Bosnia,” “Discriminating Genocide from War Crimes: Vietnam and Afghanistan,” and her 2007 volume Human Rights & Wrongs: Slavery, Terror & Genocide. Helen Fein coined such terms as “outside the sanctified universe of obligation,” “calculus of genocide,” and “genocide by attrition”, the latter a concept that appeared in the Journal Health & Human Rights, “Genocide by Attrition, 1939-1993: The Warsaw Ghetto, Cambodia & Sudan: links between Human Rights, Health and Mass Death.” Her groundbreaking work continues to influence scholarship in genocide studies and prevention as well as related fields of study.
As Executive Director of the not-for-profit Institute for Study of Genocide (ISG) for over thirty years, she organized a series of cutting-edge conferences, edited volumes including Genocide Watch and The Prevention of Genocide: Rwanda and Yugoslavia Reconsidered, advocated and lobbied on behalf of human rights and humanitarianism, and established the biennial ISG Raphael Lemkin Book Award for the outstanding volume on genocide or other severe human rights violations. She was a recipient of a series of grants and awards, including from the American Sociological Association, the Dutch PIOOM Award for Genocide: A Sociological Perspective, and a Social Science-MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in International Peace and Security Studies at Harvard University. She was a research associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University for almost two decades. From her work as Director of Indochinese Refugee Settlement in Dutchess County to serving as an advisory board member for a range of non-governmental human rights organizations, her life and legacy are that of a committed scholar and activist. Helen Fein donated her personal library on the Holocaust and Genocide to the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College.
In addition to her husband of over fifty years, poet and Yiddishist Richard Fein, Helen is survived by her daughters Marsi Fein Miller and Miriam Fein-Cole, sons-in-law, and grandchildren Aryeh, Eli, Maya and Joshua. Helen Fein’s commitment to her family and friends, research and advocacy epitomizes the life of a scholar activist, showing a deep integrity and concern for human dignity and social justice. Contributions in her honor may be made to: International Rescue Committee: (https://help.rescue.org) or to the Institute for the Study of Genocide (contact ISG Executive Director Ernesto Verdeja, everdeja@nd.edu). And, to those who wish to write her family, they can be contacted here: Richard Fein, 46 Irving Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Joyce Apsel
President, Institute for the Study of Genocide, and New York University
