Ben Ferenc, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, answered the phone in bright spirits. “Good morning,” he chirped. “Ask your questions.”
Nearly 75 years had passed since Ferenc’s conviction against 22 Nazi death squad commanders responsible for the murders of over one million Jews and others. The trials marked the first time in history that mass murderers were prosecuted for war crimes, and Ferenc was only 27 at the time. He went on to secure reparations for Holocaust survivors and play an important role in the formation of the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Now he was sitting at his desk in Delray Beach, Florida, a 102-year-old man answering a reporter’s question with wit and remarkable memory.
In 1948, what were his last words to the leading defendant after the judge sentenced the man to death? “Goodbye, Mr. Ohlendorf.”
What did he think about the war in Ukraine and the rise in anti-Semitic incidents around the world? “The world still hasn’t learned the lessons of Nuremberg.”
What was the secret of his long life? “Fortune!”
But not long after that interview in November, Ferenc’s health took a turn for the worse.
His cheeks became redder. His thoughts became more confused. He stopped checking his email.
“He was rejected very quickly,” his son, Don, said last week. “But he’s still in good spirits, still has his sense of humor and, not too tired, is still perfectly competent and rational.”
As Holocaust survivors dwindle around the world, Ben Ferenc represents a link to one of history’s darkest chapters. Before his health deteriorated, he reflected on his extraordinary life in a 45-minute interview with NBC News.
‘Grim as hell’
What has been described as “the greatest murder trial in history” was actually Ferenc’s first case.
The son of Hungarian Jews, he was 10 months old when his family immigrated to America in the 1920s and settled in New York City. He grew up poor on the rough and tumble streets of Hell’s Kitchen where his father worked as a house painter from janitor.
Ferenc attended the City College of New York, which was free for bright immigrants, earned a scholarship to Harvard Law School and after graduation joined the Army when World War II engulfed Europe.
He landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. As Allied forces closed in on the center of Nazi power in Berlin, he was transferred to a unit responsible for gathering evidence of war crimes.
Ferencz traveled to several concentration camps—Buchenwald, Mauthause, Flossenburg, Ebensee—often within days and sometimes hours of their liberation. The sight he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Hollow-eyed skeletal figures begging for help — too weak or ill to move. Others are crawling around piles of garbage, looking for scraps of food.
and bodies. So many bodies – in some cases still piled up like firewood in front of the burning crematorium.
“Serious as hell,” Ferencz said. “I had to let it get to me emotionally.”
He had a special job. The Nazis were famous for keeping extensive records. Ferenc was tasked with protecting them before they were destroyed.
“My goal was clear: get hold of the documents,” he recalled. “I went straight to the head office and closed it. No one goes in or out without my permission. No Germans, no Americans – no one. I wanted full control of the records, which I got.”
Ferenc said he tried hard to keep his emotions under control.
“I knew what I was seeing was terrifying,” he said.
He said to himself: “Just get to work, Benny. Just get your credentials. And get your ass out of there.”
Ferencz and his men collected thousands of documents in the camps and facilities in Berlin. They include detailed reports on the Einsatzgruppen, the special SS units that roamed Nazi-occupied Europe and killed more than 1 million people.
The Nazis’ studious bookkeeping would soon seal the fate of Hitler’s most notorious henchmen.
‘Hot potato’
In November 1945 the first and most famous trial began in Nuremberg. It ended with the conviction of Hermann Göring and 21 other top Nazi lieutenants.
The US decided to hold 12 more trials at Nuremberg against Nazi judges, doctors and other top figures.
By the time Ferenc discovered the Einsatzgruppen records, the United States had already finalized plans for other trials.
“I knew I had a hot potato,” he said.
He went to Nuremberg and told Telford Taylor, chief counsel for the prosecution, that they should add another case. But Telford said that was unlikely. The budget had already been set and the Pentagon was not interested in any more tests.
“I was a little angry,” Ferenc recalled. “I said, ‘Here I have the mass murder of millions of people. Don’t tell me we can’t put them on trial.’
“He said, ‘Well, can you do this in addition to your other work?’
I said, ‘Sure.’ That’s how I got my first case.
The trial began on September 29, 1947. The defendants were imposing figures—middle-aged men overseeing mass murders of innocent civilians. Ferenc was six months shy of his 28th birthday and barely 5 feet tall.
He was so short that he had to stand on books to reach the court lectern. But he spoke with the force and eloquence of a seasoned litigator.
“The defendants were brutal executioners whose terror wrote the darkest page in human history,” he said in his opening statement. “Death was their tool and life their toy. If these people are immune, the law has lost its meaning and people must live in fear.
Ferenc called only one witness – a man who attested to the authenticity of the records that documented the “cleansing” of Jews in cities across Europe.
All 22 defendants were convicted, with 14 sentenced to death. But only four were executed, including the infamous SS commander Otto Ohlendorf.
After the sentencing, Ferenc decided to meet with Ohlendorf in the courtroom. Not to get a confession or examine her mind. Ferencz wanted to expand a side.
Does Ohlendorf want to send a message to his family?
“I had his wife and five children in my mind,” Ferentz said. “Does he want me to say he’s sorry for bringing shame on the family or something along those lines?”
But Ohlendorf was not interested. He launched into a diatribe defending the Nazis, saying they were right to resist the “Communists” who were trying to take over Germany and the rest of the world.
Ferenc interrupted him and ended the conversation with three words uttered in German: “Goodbye, Mr. Ohlendorf.”
“There were no regrets,” Ferentz said. “No regrets.”
‘Contagious Optimism’
In the years after the trial, he did not return to private life.
Ferenc was recruited to lead efforts to return property seized by the Nazis to its owners or their heirs—a first-of-its-kind effort that forced him to stay in Germany for 10 years. During that time, he was called upon to help negotiate a reparations agreement with the government of West Germany.
It was a daunting and dangerous undertaking. Militant Jewish groups and others outraged at the treatment of the Germans resorted to death threats and letter bombs to stop people from engaging in negotiations.
“One thing that people don’t realize is how incredibly dangerous it was for these people,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Jewish Content Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, an organization created to negotiate agreements and subsequent negotiations. Handle the spread of money.
“But Ben always talked about it as if he had no choice – it would be unthinkable for him to give up, no matter what the survivors endured, no matter what the dangers.”
The German government finally agreed to compensate Holocaust victims worldwide.
West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer first signed the agreement in Luxembourg in 1952, but because his pen ran out of ink, he borrowed one of Ferenc’s pens, a gift from his wife Gertrude, whom he had started dating as a teenager. When he graduated from law school.
Since the agreement was finalized, approximately $90 billion has been distributed to Holocaust survivors, according to the Claims Conference.
“He’s a treasure of humanity,” Snyder said of Ferenc.
Ferenc was also involved in getting the Germans to agree to maintain cemeteries where Holocaust victims were buried.
At one meeting, West German officials rejected the suggestion that they pay for the maintenance of Jewish cemeteries forever.
Livid, Ferenc dug into his pocket and pulled out the bones of a child he had picked up while walking in a field behind the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
“You want them to pay? You ask them,” he told the officials.
According to Ferenc, the Germans retreated soon after.
“Those bones underscored the argument,” he said in a documentary about himself, “accusing evil.” “Without those bones, it wouldn’t have happened, I’m sure.”
Ferenc eventually moved his wife and four children to the United States and established a law practice in New York focusing on civil rights and civil liberties. He also lobbied for the establishment of the International Criminal Court and, at the age of 91, was selected to give closing statements in the court’s first case, the prosecution of Congolese general Thomas Lubanga Diallo.
Former ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda described Ferenc as a founding father of the court and his personal hero.
“In life, there are those who lead by example; whose contagious optimism and sense of purpose bring the seemingly impossible within reach,” she said in December 2020 at the courthouse unveiling of Ferenc’s statue.
Ferenc had long lamented to his family that, during the 10 years he lived in Germany, no one apologized for the actions of the Nazis. But on his 100th birthday, an email arrived in his inbox that he was suing.
It was a “very poignant and moving letter of remorse” that expressed “deep gratitude and appreciation for my father’s life’s work,” Ferentz’s son, Don, said.
“My father was very impressed by it,” he added.
Ferenc replied to the message the next day.
“It would be a more humane and peaceful world if everyone thought the way we do,” he wrote, according to a copy of the email shared with NBC News. “As I prepare to pass the torch, I am grateful to you and those like you who will follow my advice to ‘never give up’!
Over the years, Ferenc has received a boatload of awards and honors. Most recently, he was selected to receive Congress’ highest civilian honor, the Congressional Gold Medal, in December.
Ferentz has donated millions to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and other organizations promoting peace, vowing to end his life the way it began as a “poor boy.” And he traveled the world in the 90s spreading his “law, not war” motto.
“I was lucky to live this long,” said Ferenc, who turned 103 in March. “I hope I’ve done something good in that lifetime.”