Last surviving Nuremberg WWII prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz, dies at 103
- In his 20s, Ferencz prosecuted German officials for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during Adolf Hitler’s murderous Nazi regime
- Ferencz moved to US to escape antisemitism; he would later push for creation of international court which could prosecute government leaders for war crimes
Benjamin Ferencz, a chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials in Germany that held Nazi criminals accountable after World War II, has died at the age of 103.
Ferencz prosecuted German officials on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Among them were four commanders of SS task forces who killed defenceless women, men and children practically every day in the conquered eastern territories.
Ferencz was the last living prosecutor of the trials, according to the US Holocaust Museum, which called him “a leader in the quest for justice for victims of genocide and related crimes”.
He died on Friday in a care home in Florida, US media reported on Saturday, citing his son Don Ferencz.
Ferencz was born in 1920 in Transylvania to Orthodox Jews and emigrated to the US with his parents as a very young boy to escape rampant antisemitism. He grew up in modest circumstances in New York and later studied at Harvard Law School.
He joined the US army in time to take part in the Normandy invasion during World War II. Using his legal background, he became an investigator of Nazi war crimes against US soldiers as part of a new War Crimes Section of the Judge Advocate’s Office.