Last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor dies at 103
- April 9, 2023
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Benjamin Ferenc, the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, Germany, who brought Nazi war criminals to justice after World War II, and a longtime apostle of international
Benjamin Ferenc, the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, Germany, who brought Nazi war criminals to justice after World War II, and a longtime apostle of international criminal law, Passed away last Friday at age 103 NBCNews referring to his son.
Ferenc, a lawyer who graduated from Harvard, managed Verdicts against numerous German officers who led roving death squads Throughout the war. The circumstances of his death were not immediately revealed. He The newspaper “New York Times reported that Ferenc died at a nursing home in Boynton Beach, Florida.
He was only 27 years old when, in 1947, he worked as a prosecutor in Nuremberg. where Nazi defendants, including Hermann Goering, faced a series of trials for crimes against humanity, including the genocide known as the Holocaust, in which six million Jews and millions more were systematically exterminated.
Ferenc advocated for decades the creation of an international criminal court, a goal that became a reality with the establishment of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands. Ferenc was also a major sponsor of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, based in Washington.
“Today the world has lost a leader in the search for justice for the victims of genocide and related crimes. We mourn the death of Ben Ferenc, Nuremberg’s last war crimes prosecutor. At the age of 27, with no trial experience, he secured convictions against 22 Nazis,” the US Holocaust Museum said in a statement. Twitter.
At Nuremberg, Ferenc became U.S. Attorney General at trial of 22 paramilitary officers wandering executioners known as the Einsatzgruppen, who were part of the notorious Nazi SS.
The detachments carried out massacres of Jews, Gypsies and other people – mostly civilians – during the war in German-occupied Europe and were responsible for over a million deaths.
“With pain and hope, we uncover a premeditated murder here over a million innocent and defenseless men, women and children.” Ferenc stated this in his opening speech at the trial.
“It was a tragic execution of a program of bigotry and arrogance. Revenge is not our goal, and we are not just looking for just retribution. We ask this Court to uphold, through an international criminal case, the human right to live in peace and dignity, regardless of race or creed. The cause we represent is the defense of mankind before the law.” Franz added.
Ferenc testified in court that the accused officers methodically carried out far-reaching plans for destroy ethnic, national, political and religious groups “Doomed in the Nazi Mind”.
“Genocide – the extermination of entire categories of people – It was the main instrument of Nazi doctrine.” Ferenc said.
All defendants were found guilty and 13 of them were sentenced to death. This was the first time in Ferenc’s career.
Born March 11, 1920 in Transylvania, Romania, Ferenc was 10 months old when his family moved to the United States, where he grew up in poverty in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in the US Army and fought in Europe before joining the newly formed US Army War Crimes Section.
He collected documents and evidence in Nazi death camps such as Buchenwald. after his release by the allied forces, where he witnessed scenes that included piles of emaciated corpses and crematoria where countless bodies were cremated.
After the end of the war in 1945, Ferenc was drafted into the ranks American team at the Nuremberg trials of war criminals, the city where the Nazi leadership held elaborate propaganda rallies before the war under the command of American General Telford Taylor.
Lawsuits were controversial at the time, but ended up being hailed as milestone on the road to the establishment of international law and bringing war criminals to justice in a fair trial.
“The most significant thing was that he gave us and It gave me an idea of the mindset of mass murderers.” Ferenc said in an interview with the American Bar Association in 2018.
“More than a million people, including hundreds of thousands of children, were killed in cold blood, and I wanted to understand how educated people, many of whom had doctorates or were generals in the German army, could not only endure, but alsonot to commit or commit such heinous crimes.”
After the Nuremberg trials, Ferenc worked to obtain compensation for the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Later Ferenc advocated the creation of an international criminal court. In 1998, 120 countries approved in Rome the statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), which came into force in 2002.
Image: Pexels
At the age of 91, he participated in the first trial, making the closing arguments in the trial against the Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. convicted of war crimes.
Over the years, Ferenc has been critical of his country’s actions, including during the Vietnam War. In January 2020, he wrote an opinion paper in The newspaper “New York Times in which he described “an immoral act” and “a clear violation of national and international law”. assassination by the United States of a senior Iranian military leader when hit by a drone.
“The reason why I continue to devote most of my life to preventing war is because I realize that The next war will make the last one look like child’s play.” he told the bar in 2018. “My motto and my hope remains the law, not war.”
(Reuters)
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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