Ben Ferencz presented a “humanity to law” petition to the war crimes court as a 27-year-old novice.
Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from Germany’s Nuremberg trials, passed away at the age of 103.
Mr. Ferencz was designated chief prosecutor for the US prosecution of 22 Einsatzgruppen officers at 27.
The mobile killing squads were part of Germany’s Nazi forces during the Second World War, and their officers were accused of murdering over one million Jews, Gypsies, and other minorities in Eastern Europe in 1947.
In his opening statement, Mr. Ferencz stated, “It is with sadness and hope that we reveal the deliberate massacre of over one million innocent and defenseless men, women, and children.
“This was the lamentable conclusion to a program of intolerance and haughtiness.
“Vengeance is not our objective, nor do we seek only retribution.”
“We urge this court to affirm, through international criminal action, the right of every person to live in peace and dignity, regardless of race or religion.
The case presented is a humane appeal to the law.
Individuals “condemned in the Nazi mind.”
He told the court that the officers had methodically executed long-term plans to exterminate racial, national, political, and religious groups that were “condemned in the Nazi mind.”
Genocide – the extermination of entire human populations – was a central component of Nazi ideology.
13 of the defendants were sentenced to death by hanging, even though Mr. Ferencz had not requested the death penalty.
A look inside the minds of mass assassins.
Mr. Ferencz was born in Romania in 1920 and moved to the US with his family at 10 months old.
In 1943, after graduating from Harvard Law School, he entered the military. And fought in Europe before joining the army’s newly established war crimes section.
After the conclusion of World War II in 1945, he was recruited to join the US prosecution team at Nuremberg. “It gave us and me an understanding of mass murderers’ mentality,” he told the American Bar Association in 2018.
“They had murdered over a million people, including hundreds of thousands of children, in cold blood, and I wanted to know how educated people – many of whom had PhDs or were generals in the German army – could not only tolerate but also lead and commit such atrocities.”
The next conflict will make the last one appear like a game.
Later, Mr. Ferencz helped Holocaust survivors regain property, businesses, sacred relics, and other assets for Jewish charity.
In addition, he advocated for the establishment of an international criminal court, which was eventually established in 2002 and now resides in The Hague, Netherlands, albeit without the participation of some major nations, including the United States.
“The next war will make the last one appear like child’s play,” said Ferencz in 2018.
Saturday, Mr. Ferencz passed away in Boynton Beach, Florida.
His wife Gertrude passed away in 2019, leaving him with a son and three daughters.
