Its a well-known playbook, Michel argued, citing a litany of Russian oligarchs who have sought to whitewash their dirty deeds through philanthropy, turning our most vaunted cultural institutions into reputation laundering factories that attract the same sketchy agents who have already poured their ill-gotten funds into American hedge funds, real estate, and shell companies, according to a 2020 report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. Ferencz attended the City College of New York, which was free for bright immigrants, earned a scholarship to Harvard Law School and enlisted in the Army after graduation as World War II engulfed Europe. I get that this is a hard time for cultural institutions like Yad Vashem, whose public funding has weathered two years of a global pandemic at a time of surging anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and far-right extremist violence. It was pure luck that he survived the war, he later said. The defendants were imposing figures middle-aged men who had overseen the mass slaughter of innocent civilians. I am naive? Also learn about how he is rich at the age of 49 years old? Maher: 'It's not wrong' to have debate about transgender issues, See why 'Dilbert' comic strips got dropped from US newspapers, Hit horror film is inspired by real events. Excerpts from the Opening Statements by Ben Ferencz, Chief Prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen Case #9 held in Nuremberg. Benjamin Ferencz: No. Mr. Ferencz served for the United States under General Ferencz traveled to multiple concentration camps Buchenwald, Mauthause, Flossenburg, Ebensee often within days and sometimes hours of their liberation. He became the first in his family to go to college, then got a scholarship to Harvard Law School. Not to elicit a confession or probe his mind. I was 27 years old. The family settled in New York City, where they lived on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. His website says he served in an anti-aircraft artillery battalion preparing for the invasion of France.. Ask your questions. His cheeks became more hollow. As a sign of respect, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will speak after him. All of these oligarchs made their wealth through either political connections to the Kremlin, links to organized crime, or both. Stupid to an incredible degree to send young people out to kill other young people they don't even know, who never did anybody any harm, never harmed them. According to the United Nations article accompanying the video interview with Ferencz, his motto was Never give up. The website calls him still a tireless, and fearless, fighter for human rights and justice. However, according to Ferenczs bio, the United States decided to hold a wider swath of Nazis responsible than just Hitlers highest profile henchmen. After securing evidence of Nazi atrocities in concentration camps and serving as the youngest prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials, the US lawyer helped found the ICC in the Hague. Benjamin Ferencz: Well, don't say that. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot loses reelection bid, Fiery train crash in Greece kills dozens, many of them students. Chief prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz presents documents as evidence at the Einsatzgruppen Trial. Its a form of reparations without any admission of guilt or wrongdoing, and thats something Ferencz, who helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, establishing every human beings inalienable rights to freedom, dignity and equality, and negotiated the terms of restitution to victims of Nazi slave labor after the Holocaust, would know. I'm sitting here listening to you. Ferencz says his goal from the beginning was to affirm the rule of law and deter similar crimes from ever being committed again. He was carrying out his government's instructions. Lesley Stahl reports. Indelibly seared into my memory are the scenes I witnessed while liberating these centers of death and destruction. This dental device was sold to fix patients' jaws. You ask them, he recalled telling the officials. BREAKING:Eli Lilly caps the cost of insulin at $35 a month, Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, answered the phone in bright spirits. I said, "Look. Of course after the war, these titans of German industry disavowed knowledge of the war crimes their money fueled (and for which they were charged at the Nuremberg Trials), much in the way so many oligarchs now are claiming they have nothing to do with Putinand if anything are against the war and are working to broker peace and providing humanitarian aid. Gustav Krupp, who was the first to pledge 1 million reichsmarks, was made Hitlers fuhrer of industry, becoming a key arms supplier of the Wehrmacht. In 2017, Ben Ferencz partnered with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museums Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide to establish the Ferencz International Justice Initiative to continue his legacy of demanding justice for victims of atrocity crimes. Germanys business elites met with Hitler before the March 1933 election, intoxicated by his vow to eradicate trade unions and communists (code for Jews). Benjamin Ferencz, who turned 100 in March, remains a fundamentally optimistic person. It was a very poignant and moving letter of remorse that expressed deep thanks and appreciation for my fathers life work, said Ferenczs son, Don. Einsatzgruppen D was the unit of Ferencz's lead defendant Otto Ohlendorf. Throughout his career, he has made use of every tool in the justice toolbox: collecting evidence and documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust; prosecuting cases against war criminals; representing victims in their restitution claims; developing new norms, laws, and treaties; helping to build the political will for new international courts; and writing, teaching, and inspiring the next generation of justice champions. It ended with the conviction of Herman Goring and 21 other top Nazi lieutenants. In the end, only four of the court's death sentences were carried out. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) speaks with Oleg Deripaska, head of "The base element" company at the International Investment Forum in Sochi on September 19, 2008. He witnessedthe first Nuremberg Trial, against the main Nazi war criminals, as a spectator. Lesley Stahl: They're making them run to their own death? From immigrant to lawyer to WWII soldier to Nuremberg prosecutor the amazing life of Ben Ferencz, 60 Minutes wrote in its promotion for the segment. They all have already tags on 'em. Beginning with his time as an investigator in World War II and chief U.S. Army prosecutor during the Nuremberg Trials, through his long, outstanding career as an advocate of the international rule of law. Benjamin Ferencz: And I'm still in there fighting. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the 12 Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. Now, at 102 years old, he was sitting at his desk in Delray Beach, Florida, answering a reporters questions with wit and remarkable recall. The gift was an eight-figure donation, according to spokesperson Simmi Allen, who said the oligarch was to be the second-largest donor to the institution. Darryl Hinton He quickly recognized the importance of the find. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, two New York Democrats, and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) All Rights Reserved. Without pity or remorse, the SS murder squads killed every Jewish man, woman, and child they could lay their hands on. Exhibit 111: "In the last 10 weeks, we have liquidated around 55,000 Jews." Discovery Company. According to his website, he received convictions in each case, with 13 death sentences given. We recommend you to check the complete list of Famous lawyer and pacifist. / CBS News. Benjamin B. Ferencz, 27, presents his case in Nuremberg in 1947 at what the Associated Press called the biggest murder trial in history.. will introduce the legislation on Friday, according to Gillibrands office. It is not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben Ferencz. Three officers shot, standoff follows in Kansas City, Mo., police say, Vanessa Bryant, family settles claims over Kobe crash site photos for $28.5M, What the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive wants the world to know. Please scroll down to see information about Ben Ferencz Social media profiles. He has been a strong proponent of the International Criminal Court, of reaching international consensus around a definition of the crime of aggression, and of other mechanisms to hold high-level perpetrators to account for mass atrocities. He wanted to be a pilot, but the Army Air Corps wouldn't take him. Some of his titles include: Mr. Ferencz lives in Florida and has four grown children. They should remember, from me, it takes courage not to be discouraged. Ferencz was born on March 11, 1920, in Csolt, Szatmr County, located in the historical Transylvania region in the Kingdom of Hungary (today part of omcuta Mare, Romania). By Laya Anasu April 18, 2013. General Telford Taylor, in charge of the Nuremberg trials, asked him to direct a team of researchers in Berlin, one of whom found a cache of top-secret documents in the ruins of the German foreign ministry. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. With appreciation to the Planethood Foundation. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Benjamin Ferencz. Nevertheless, Ferencz and his 50-person teamwere givenfree rein to securevast amounts of documents and incriminating evidence from the extensive Nazi bureaucracy. I hope that Ive done some good during that lifetime.. But on his 100th birthday, an email landed in his inbox from a descendant of one of the men he had prosecuted. Now I will tell you something very profound, which I have learned after many years. And these were daily reports from the Eastern Front-- which unit entered which town, how many people they killed. his net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. Benjamin Ferencz: Of course, is my answer. As for the oligarchs claims that they have nothing to do with Putin or his war in Ukraine, Ferencz adds: I dont buy it. The courtroom was Nuremberg; the crime, genocide; and the defendants, a group of German SS officers accused of committing the largest number of Nazi killings outside the concentration camps -- more than a million men, women, and children shot in their own towns and villages in cold blood. Ferencz came home, married his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to set foot in Germany again. The evidence wasused against members of Hitler's inner circle,war criminals who includedHermann Gring, Rudolf Hess, Baldur von Schirach and others. The appreciation for Ferencz has been going on for years . There is no point in drowning in a lake of tears, Ferencz says in the introduction to a forthcoming book about him. He stopped checking his emails. Ben Ferencz in court: The charges we have brought accuse the defendants of having committed crimes against humanity. Ferencz called only one witness a man who verified the authenticity of the records that documented the cleansing of Jews in cities across Europe. There is a documentary on his life called Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World Of Ben Ferencz, and the film and television rights to his life story have been acquired. At the time, Ferencz just had the documents, and he started adding up the numbers. But Ohlendorf wasnt interested. Later, he became an advocate for the establishment of an international rule of law and for the establishent of an International Criminal Court. Link Copied! Each had its own criminal prosecution methods. Produced by Shari Finkelstein and Nieves Zuberbhler. Toward the end of the war, because of his legal training, he was transferred to a brand new unit in General Patton's Third Army, created to investigate war crimes. If only the world had responded to Hitler in the same way. So Ferencz has spent the rest of his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international court like Nuremburg. Those bones clinched the argument, he said in a documentary about him, Prosecuting Evil. Without those bones, it would not have happened, Im sure.. But now that the U.K. announced it was freezing all of Abramovichs assets and imposing a travel ban on him and his one-time business partner, industrialist Oleg Deripaska, Yad Vashem responded that it was suspending the ambitious partnership. And I also learned that if we did not devote ourselves to developing effective world law, the same cruel mentality that made the Holocaust possible might one day destroy the entire human race. Today, Ferencz is 99-years-old. Later, he became an advocate of international rule of law and for the establishment of an International Criminal Court. As U.S. forces liberated concentration camps, his job was to rush in and gather evidence. Altman argued that had German industrialists not colluded with Hitler, the Nazis would never have had the resources to kill 6 million Jews, let alone funnel hundreds of thousands of Jewish youth (like herself and my mother) into work camps where they fought for their lives and endured unspeakable brutality. On June 6, 1944, D-Day, he and his comrades jumped from a landing craft and pushed towardOmaha Beach, on the northern French coast of Normandy. But he spoke with the power and eloquence of a seasoned litigator. Benjamin Ferencz: You oughta get some more friends. Blame the Federal Reserve. Taylor told Ferencz adding another trial was impossible. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. The defendants were 24 men from the "SS Einsatzgruppen,"representing a total of 3,000 members. There is zero reason these nonprofits should have taken this money in the first placeand now they have a moral imperative to return it. 284 pp. That is the current system. After achieving the convictions at Nuremberg, he continued working toward international law. Even today, when I close my eyes, I witness a deadly vision I can never forget-the crematoria aglow with the fire of burning flesh, the mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. Ben is a phenomenal celebrity influencer. Benjamin B. Ferencz was born in Transylvania in 1920 and moved to America when he was ten months old. We've had genocide since then. The Jews were shot? Ben Ferencz: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Copyright 2023 Heavy, Inc. All rights reserved. Benjamin Ferencz: I was so young. Look what's happened to the same-sex marriages. At Harvard, he studied under Roscoe Pound and also did research for Sheldon Glueck who, at that time, was writing a book on war crimes. He landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Would he like me to say that he was sorry that he brought disgrace on the family or something along those lines?. First published on June 27, 2021 / 6:54 PM. In that role, he was sent to the concentration camps that had been liberated by the U.S. army. After the trial, Mr. Ferencz fought for compensation for victims and survivors of the Holocaust, the return of stolen assets, and other forms of restitution for those who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis. also know about his Social media accounts i.e. Exhibit 179, from Kiev in 1941: "The city's Jews were ordered to present themselves about 34,000 reported, including women and children. On January 19 th , Benjamin Ferencz, the legendary Nuremberg Chief Prosecutor was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal the nations highest expression of appreciation for achievements and contributions. I had to refrain from letting it get to me emotionally.. Ben Ferencz has led an extraordinary life. 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