‘Treasure of Humanity’: 102-year-old Nazi prosecutor still insists on peace

Ben Ferenc, the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor, answered the call in high spirits. “Good morning,” he called. “Ask your questions.”

Almost 75 years have passed since Ferenc secured the conviction of 22 Nazi death squad commanders responsible for the murder of more than 1 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 years old at the time. He continued to play a critical role in securing compensation for Holocaust survivors and in establishing the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Now he was sitting at his desk in Delray Beach, Florida, a 102-year-old man, answering a reporter’s questions with wit and a remarkable memory.

What were his last words to the main defendant after the judge sentenced him to death in 1948? Goodbye, Mr. Ohlendorf.

What does he think of the war in Ukraine and the surge in anti-Semitic incidents around the world? “The world still hasn’t learned the lessons of Nuremberg.”

What was his secret to such a long life? “Luck!”

But shortly after that November interview, Ferenc’s health took a turn for the worse.

His cheeks became more sunken. His thoughts became even more confused. He stopped checking his email.

“He refused very quickly,” his son Don said last week. “But he’s still in a good mood, he still has a sense of humor, and when he’s not too tired, he’s still perfectly persuasive and reasoning.”

As the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles around the world, Ben Ferencz represents a link to one of history’s darkest chapters. Before his health deteriorated, he reflected on his unusual life in a 45-minute interview with NBC News.

“Dark as Hell”

Benjamin Ferenc speaks at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony.
Ben Ferenc speaks at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Washington, D.C. in 2018.Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images File

What has been described as “the largest 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 the US in 1920 and settled in New York. He grew up in poverty on the bumpy streets of Hell’s Kitchen, where his father worked as a janitor and later as a house painter.

Ferenc attended the City College of New York, which was free to able immigrants, received a scholarship to Harvard Law School, and enlisted in the army after World War II engulfed Europe.

He landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. As the Allied forces approached the center of Nazi power in Berlin, he was transferred to a unit responsible for collecting evidence of war crimes.

Franz visited several concentration camps—Buchenwald, Mauthaus, Flossenburg, Ebensee—often within days, and sometimes hours, of their release. The scenes he witnessed would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Skeletal figures with blank eyes, begging for help – many too weak or too sick to move. Others crawl around the garbage heap, digging up scraps.

And bodies. So many dead bodies – in some cases stacked like firewood in front of still-burning crematoria.

“Damn dark,” Ferenc said. “I had to refrain from having it hurt me emotionally.”

He had a specific job. The Nazis were well known for keeping detailed records. Ferenc was tasked with securing them before they were destroyed.

“My goal was clear: to capture the documents,” he recalled. “I went straight to the main office and closed it. “No one enters or leaves without my permission. Not a German, not an American, nobody. I want full control over the archives, which I got.”

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