3. What foreign languages do you know?
Under the Bush administration, the U.S. did sign the treaty, but did not ratify it. [15], On May 3, 2011, two days after the death of Osama bin Laden was reported, the New York Times published a Ferencz letter which argued that "illegal and unwarranted execution - even of suspected mass murderers - undermines democracy. That enabled me to be selected and become a war crime lawyer. Why can’t others? But that’s to be expected. Also, we live in a cyberspace age. [8] From 1985 to 1996, Ferencz also worked as an Adjunct Professor of International Law at Pace University at White Plains, New York. “Make her work for her interview,” he chuckles.
It canât be that way anymore. Another step is to sue the individuals who are responsible in a civil court and hold them personally accountable for whatever crimes have occurred. The reason I have continued to devote most of my life to preventing war, is my awareness that the next war will make the last one look like childâs play. You cannot go with the old standards and the old laws. Never give up. 7. I was then 23 years old. Image: 2001, Benjamin Ferencz; New Rochelle, NY; photo by Der Spiegel. Why couldn’t we settle this by peaceful means?
The court of last resort is the people themselves.
I won a scholarship at Harvard Law School for my exam on Criminal Law. At 94 years old, Ferencz is the last living prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials—which the Allied forces held after World War II for the prosecution of the Nazi leadership. Later, he became an advocate of the establishment of an international rule of law and of an International Criminal Court. Ferencz, after all, hasn’t lived an ordinary life by any stretch of the imagination. We have to think of future victims.
BF: Law should be based not merely on comparing criminal statute with particular behavior, although that’s part of it. They have to be educated. 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 twelve military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. After he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. I’m five feet tall. [2] Together with Kurt May and others, he participated in the setup of reparation and rehabilitation programs for the victims of persecutions by the Nazis, and also had a part in the negotiations that led to the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany signed on September 10, 1952[11] and the first German Restitution Law in 1953. New York at that time was [full] of bootleggers. “Tell me your problems,” Ferencz says to me, trying to distract me from the impending interview. BF: It was because of my training at Harvard Law School, where I worked as a research assistant to a professor of criminology, [Professor Glueck], that I learned about war crimes.
Law, not war. What was most significant about it was it gave us and it gave me an insight into the mentality of mass murderers. These principles seem to me to be very sound then, and they continue to be very sound.
FM: What is your solution to solving problems around the world? Benjamin Ferencz: Iâve been trying all my life to create a more peaceful world grounded in the rule of law and justice. If I can do it, why can’t you? We have to create international courts, competent to enforce their judgments against those who defy the laws necessary for the peace and security of mankind.
6.
I am always guided by my supreme commander.
At Harvard, he studied under Roscoe Pound[7] and also did research for Sheldon Glueck, who at that time was writing a book on war crimes.
Sometimes the situation will change. Since aggression seems to be stalled, in that nations hesitate to give the International Criminal Court the jurisdiction to act on it, it should be condemned as a crime against humanity, which is punishable under many domestic statutes. No matter what the decision is in law, and there may be miscarriages in law, it will always be better than war. Benjamin B. Ferencz sits in Eliot Dining Hall spooning soup into his mouth. It seems fitting that the last living Nuremberg prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz – who turns 100 today – was born in the year that the League of Nations was founded and the Treaty of Versailles went into effect. 9. Putting it into more national laws will take us a big step forward. It was there that I became the Chief Prosecutor of this most significant trial.
It is a supreme international crime of aggression. On April 10, Ferencz returned to Harvard. FM: What do you think is a big problem with the law? The law is constantly changing and has to change to keep up with the needs of society.
Already in his first book published in 1975, entitled Defining International Aggression-The Search for World Peace, he argued for the establishment of such an international court.
We cannot kill an ideology with a gun. Taylor appointed him Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case—Ferencz's first case. [5], An International Criminal Court was established on July 1, 2002, when the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court came into force. Ferencz graduated from Harvard in 1943. Pages containing cite templates with deprecated parameters, Articles with dead external links from October 2016, Articles with dead external links from July 2017, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, American military personnel of World War II, American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent, Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Judge Advocate General's Corps, United States Army, Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Lecture Series of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law, The International Criminal Court and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Review Conference of the International Criminal Court Statute, United States and the International Criminal Court, War crimes committed by the United States, https://web.archive.org/web/20060113182050/http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/youth-outreach/peace-heroes/ferencz-benjamin.htm, "INTERVIU Ultimul procuror al procesului de la Nürnberg încă în viaţă: Implicarea României în Holocaust nu este un lucru de care să fie mândră", http://adevarul.ro/locale/pitesti/interviu-ultimul-procuror-procesului-nurnberg-inca-viata-implicarea-romaniei-holocaust-nu-lucru-mandra-1_594bad915ab6550cb864892d/index.html, https://web.archive.org/web/20070202085442/http://www.benferencz.org/arts/32.html, Chief prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz presents his case at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, Pursuing Human Dignity: The Legacies of Nuremberg for International Law, Human Rights & Education, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer signs the reparations agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and Israel, Telford Taylor: Pioneer of International Criminal Law, http://www.geschichte-menschenrechte.de/personen/benjamin-ferencz/, "2009: Antonio Cassese, Benjamin Ferencz", http://www.erasmusprijs.org/index.cfm?lang=en&page=2009:+ANTONIO+CASSESE,+BENJAMIN+FERENCZ, Letter to NY Times re: Bin Laden's Killing, "The improbable story of the man who won history’s ‘biggest murder trial’ at Nuremberg", Letter to NY Times re: Crimes Against Humanity, http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/the-nuremberg-prosecutor/, "Peace Palace path named for Nazi war crimes prosecutor", https://www.denhaag.nl/en/residents/to/Peace-Palace-path-named-for-Nazi-war-crimes-prosecutor.htm, A lecture Ferencz gave on Memorial Day, 2006, at the Library of Congress, Benjamin Ferencz on Nuremberg War Crimes Trials on C-SPAN, Oral history interview with Benjamin Ferencz at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Biographical Interview with Benjamin Ferencz, https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Ben_Ferencz?oldid=4597344.
4. Never give up. [6] In 1945, he was transferred to the headquarters of General Patton's Third Army, where he was assigned to a team tasked with setting up a war crimes branch and collecting evidence for such crimes. âLaw, not warâ remains my slogan and my hope.
As the interview wraps up, Eliot Dining Hall is emptying out.
FM: Nearly half of the people prosecuted in the case you dealt with were sentenced to the death penalty. Imagine if you were a surviving child and he killed all the members of your family, and then you have to support him in prison and feed him and take care of his health. It’s not what language you speak, it’s what you say. There is a dangerous gap in the law. The court was ultimately established under his leadership in 2002.
And why should the innocent have to support a man in prison who has done such a crime? [8] After his studies, he joined the U.S. Army, where he served in the 115th AAA Gun Battalion, an anti-aircraft artillery unit. He was later transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch to gather evidence of Nazi brutality. He spent much of his career after the trials working the creation of an International Criminal Court that would handle issues of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Please visit my website, www.benferencz.org. From 1985 to 1996, he was Adjunct Professor of International Law at Pace University.
Benjamin B. Ferencz was born in Transylvania in 1920 and moved to America when he was ten months old. 2. I served as a busboy in Divinity School, and ate the leftovers and I was thankful for those leftovers. Iâve been moving a heavy rock up the hill, but there has been great progress. It circulatesâupward slowly and up and down. How did you feel about that at that time? Benjamin Ferencz has a lot of fight in him for a 98-year-old. Consider the proposition that law, not war, should be your guide. Coalition for the International Criminal Court: 2006. He has been married to Gertrude since 1946.
It may be that they donât have any money, in which case you are stalemated, but they may also have hidden it someplace else. You must change the ethics of the people. FM: During your time serving in the army, did you ever have any moments when you stared into the eyes of your enemy and had a realization? The city's Deputy Mayor Saskia Bruines (International Affairs) travelled to Washington to symbolically present the street sign to Ferencz. [5] The family settled in New York City, where they lived on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. On Christmas 1945,[7] Ferencz was honorably discharged from the Army with the rank of Sergeant. FM: How did you come to be part of the Nuremberg trial prosecution? War is hell.
He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and is the last living Nuremberg trial prosecutor. There is no glory. That is a challenge.
At the Nuremberg Trials in 1946, the waging of aggressive war was indelibly branded as âthe supreme international crime.
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 twelve military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. [13], Ferencz has repeatedly argued against this procedure and suggested that the U.S. join the ICC without reservations, as it was a long-established rule of law that "law must apply equally to everyone", also in an international context.