The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has expressed sadness over the death of Mr. Benjajamin B. Ferencz.
The UN Secretary-General in his condolence message said, “I am saddened by the passing of Mr. Benjamin B. Ferencz.
“After seeing the horrors of the Holocaust firsthand as a soldier, and investigating and prosecuting Nazi war crimes at the Nuremberg trials as a young lawyer, Mr. Ferencz devoted most of his life to trying to make the world a better place.
“He was an early and passionate advocate for the establishment of an international criminal court which he described as “the missing link in the world legal order”.
Guterres noted that Mr. Ferencz remained a stalwart defender of the International Criminal Court for the rest of his life.
“On behalf of the United Nations, I extend my deepest condolences to Mr. Benjamin Ferencz’s family, and to all the people around the world whose lives were touched by a remarkable and compassionate champion for justice and human rights.
“Our best tribute to Mr. Ferencz is to continue his essential work to promote accountability for atrocity crimes and ensure that the voices of victims are heard,” he said.
He was chief Prosecutor for the United States in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, Nuremberg Trials (1947-48).
Benjamin B. Ferencz was born in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania in 1920. When he was ten months old his family moved to America (specifically, the “Hell’s Kitchen” neighborhood of Manhattan).
Mr. Ferencz attended the City College of New York, and won a scholarship to Harvard Law School where he worked as a researcher for a professor doing a book on war crimes. After Ben graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943, he joined an anti-aircraft artillery battalion preparing for the invasion of France.
As an enlisted man under General Patton, he fought in most of the major campaigns in Europe. As Nazi atrocities were uncovered, he was transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch of the Army to gather evidence of Nazi brutality and apprehend the criminals.
In his 1988 book, Planethood, Ferencz writes: “Indelibly seared into my memory are the scenes I witnessed while liberating these centers of death and destruction. Camps like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau are vividly imprinted in my mind’s eye. 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…. I had peered into Hell.”
