- Person
- Benjamin Ferencz
- Lived
- 1920–2023
- Field
- International law
- From
- American
The story
Benjamin Ferencz was born in 1920 into a Jewish family in Transylvania and was brought to the United States as a baby. He grew up poor in New York, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School and served as an enlisted soldier in the Second World War, earning five battle stars. In 1945 he joined the US Army's new war crimes branch, collecting evidence in newly liberated concentration camps.
After his discharge he was recruited to Telford Taylor's team for the subsequent Nuremberg trials, a series of twelve trials held by American authorities after the main tribunal. In the spring of 1946 his researchers discovered secret reports in Berlin detailing the mass shootings carried out by the Einsatzgruppen, mobile killing units behind the Eastern Front. Ferencz flew to Nuremberg and demanded a trial. Taylor hesitated because staff and money were short, so Ferencz offered to handle the case himself.
Aged 27, he was appointed chief prosecutor in what the Associated Press called the biggest murder trial in history: 22 defendants accused of murdering more than a million people. It was his first case. Relying on the killers' own reports, he rested the prosecution's case in two days. Every defendant in the dock was convicted, and fourteen were sentenced to death, though only four were executed. The trial was also the first to use the term genocide in a legal setting.
Ferencz then spent about a decade in Germany helping to secure restitution for victims of Nazi persecution, and took part in the negotiations behind the 1952 reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany. After 13 years in private practice in New York, he left to campaign full time for international law and a permanent International Criminal Court, which came into being in 2002.
He kept advocating law, not war, until his death at 103 in April 2023, by which time he was the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor. His case helped establish the principle that individuals, including commanders who claim to follow orders, can be held personally responsible for mass murder. That principle lies at the heart of international criminal law today, from the UN tribunals of the 1990s to the International Criminal Court.
Why it matters
Ferencz helped establish that leaders can be held personally responsible for genocide, and his decades of advocacy helped create the International Criminal Court.
About Benjamin Ferencz
At 27, in his first case, chief prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen trial at Nuremberg; he spent the rest of his 103 years campaigning for an International Criminal Court.
More about Benjamin Ferencz
- Ben Ferencz spoke at the ICC's first trialIn 2011, aged 91, Ben Ferencz delivered a closing statement in the International Criminal Court's trial of Thomas Lubanga, and hailed his 2012 conviction as a milestone.
- Ben Ferencz gave up his law practice to work for peaceAfter 13 years in private practice, and moved by the Vietnam War, Ben Ferencz quit to campaign full time for an international criminal court and laws against aggression.
- Ben Ferencz called his case a plea of humanity to lawOpening his Nuremberg case in 1947, Ben Ferencz said vengeance was not the goal: the case was a plea of humanity to law, a theme that guided the rest of his life.
- Ben Ferencz rushed into liberated camps to save evidenceIn 1945 Ben Ferencz joined the US Army's new war crimes branch and entered camps such as Buchenwald and Mauthausen, sometimes within hours of liberation, to secure Nazi records.
- Ben Ferencz taught international law at Pace UniversityFrom 1985 to 1996 Ben Ferencz was an adjunct professor of international law at Pace University in White Plains, New York, passing on the lessons of Nuremberg.
- Ben Ferencz gave his savings to prevent genocideBen Ferencz donated $1 million to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's genocide prevention work and pledged to leave his life savings to genocide prevention initiatives.
- Ben Ferencz stayed in Germany to win restitution for victimsAfter Nuremberg, Ben Ferencz spent a decade in Germany setting up programs to return looted property and compensate victims of Nazi persecution, and helped shape the 1953 restitution law.
Sources
- Ben Ferencz Wikipedia
- The Biggest Murder Trial in History benferencz.org
- Einsatzgruppen trial Wikipedia
- Ben Ferencz, former Nuremberg trials prosecutor who secured convictions of Nazi death squad commanders, dies at 103 NBC News
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.