Benjamin Ferencz Interview — Transcript

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1. 0:00greetings to you all
2. 0:02my name is benjamin ferenz
3. 0:04and i believe i'm the sole surviving
4. 0:07prosecutor
5. 0:09of the nuremberg war crimes trials
6. 0:11following world war ii
7. 0:13i am now in my 96th year and i'm pleased
8. 0:17to be invited to talk to you at the dodd
9. 0:20center
10. 0:21about what nuremberg was all about
11. 0:24what we have learned what we still have
12. 0:26to learn
13. 0:27and
14. 0:28is it possible to achieve the goals
15. 0:31which we conveyed at nuremberg
16. 0:33justice robert jackson was the leading
17. 0:36jurist in the united states and
18. 0:38appointed by the president of the united
19. 0:40states to head the american delegation
20. 0:42to the international military tribunal
21. 0:45tom dodd who was also an outstanding
22. 0:48lawyer and a senator of the united
23. 0:50states was a very important
24. 0:53assistant to justice jackson
25. 0:56as a result of those trials
26. 0:59the world was told that aggression is
27. 1:02the supreme international crime war
28. 1:05making itself which had been legal in
29. 1:07the past was declared to be an
30. 1:10international crime that was a great
31. 1:12step forward in the evolution of
32. 1:14civilized behavior it also taught
33. 1:17that law must apply equally to everyone
34. 1:20at the same time it emphasized that the
35. 1:23law must be flexible enough to change
36. 1:26with the times in order to meet the
37. 1:28needs
38. 1:29of the society which is supposed to bind
39. 1:33that coupled with the united nations
40. 1:35charter set forth a program from which
41. 1:38it was clear that in order to have a
42. 1:40peaceful society you needed clear laws
43. 1:44which would define what was permissible
44. 1:47or not permissible you needed courts to
45. 1:50determine whether the laws have been
46. 1:51violated and you need a system of
47. 1:54effective enforcement none of those
48. 1:56prerequisites has been met in full we
49. 1:59have made progress on the laws
50. 2:02recognizing crimes against humanity
51. 2:04we have made progress on the courts we
52. 2:06do have an international criminal court
53. 2:09we have made
54. 2:10practically no progress on the
55. 2:11enforcement leg of that three-legged
56. 2:14stool on which civilization must depend
57. 2:17the result is we have the chaos which we
58. 2:19have today
59. 2:21unfortunately our current system
60. 2:24prescribes that if the leaders are
61. 2:26unable to agree
62. 2:27on an important international issue
63. 2:30affecting their national honor or their
64. 2:32pride or their economics or their
65. 2:34religious outlook they send young people
66. 2:36out to kill other young people whom they
67. 2:38don't even know
68. 2:40who may never have harmed them who may
69. 2:42never have harmed anyone at all and when
70. 2:44they get tired of killing each other
71. 2:46they take a rest and then they start
72. 2:48again and they start killing each other
73. 2:50for the same reasons it's preposterous
74. 2:53to accept such a system to regulate
75. 2:56human behavior
76. 2:57the university of connecticut has been
77. 2:59one of the forefront organizations
78. 3:01stressing human rights
79. 3:03the most fundamental of all human rights
80. 3:05is the right to life that has appeared
81. 3:07in many human rights documents and
82. 3:09should be obvious to every thinking
83. 3:11person
84. 3:12how do you do that in the face of the
85. 3:14world in which we find
86. 3:17it can be done you must begin by
87. 3:19changing the way people think and feel
88. 3:22change of hearts and minds about the use
89. 3:24of armed force to settle their disputes
90. 3:27it should not be tolerable but we need
91. 3:29political support for that and we see in
92. 3:32the united states that political support
93. 3:34is sometimes very narrow
94. 3:36those who have a different point of view
95. 3:38are entitled to respect but you don't
96. 3:40have to agree with them if they think
97. 3:43that the only way to go forward is by
98. 3:45killing your adversary that's a very bad
99. 3:47mistake because our capacity to kill
100. 3:50exceeds our capacity today to control
101. 3:52human behavior and our capacity to kill
102. 3:55has reached enormous strides in
103. 3:57cyberspace and elsewhere we can destroy
104. 4:00all life on this planet unless we change
105. 4:02our way of thinking and acting
106. 4:05so the lessons of nuremberg remain still
107. 4:08to be taught
108. 4:10senator tom dodd was an important voice
109. 4:13justice jackson was an important voice
110. 4:16they were followed by general telfer
111. 4:18taylor who set up the subsequent trials
112. 4:20of which i was apart i had been a combat
113. 4:23soldier in world war ii i had seen the
114. 4:25horrors of war first hand i had seen the
115. 4:29crematorium when they were still going i
116. 4:31saw dead bodies not only floating in the
117. 4:33sea at normandy beach but on the ground
118. 4:36of the many camps which i entered as an
119. 4:39american soldier seeking evidence of the
120. 4:41crimes
121. 4:43i then became the chief prosecutor for
122. 4:45the united states in one of the
123. 4:46subsequent trials which convicted 22
124. 4:49defendants of murdering in cold blood
125. 4:52over a million people including
126. 4:54thousands of children shot one shot at a
127. 4:57time
128. 4:58all 22 of my defendants were convicted
129. 5:0114 were sentenced to death
130. 5:03i was then 27 years old and it was my
131. 5:06first case
132. 5:07i am now in my 96th year
133. 5:10and i've had a second case
134. 5:12finally we created an international
135. 5:14criminal court which now exists in the
136. 5:16hague
137. 5:17when they came to the end of their first
138. 5:19trial
139. 5:20they asked me to do the closing remarks
140. 5:22for the prosecution which i did i was
141. 5:24then 92 years old that was my second
142. 5:27case
143. 5:28but the world had come a long way since
144. 5:30then it still has a long way to go but a
145. 5:33three-word solution will enable you to
146. 5:35focus law not war should be the slogan
147. 5:39and the goal
148. 5:40say can it be done of course it can be
149. 5:42done imagine what the world would look
150. 5:44like
151. 5:45if you could save all those billions of
152. 5:47dollars which are spent every day on
153. 5:49things to kill other innocent people
154. 5:52imagine how we could have funds
155. 5:54available to care for the poor to
156. 5:56control the environment to do all of the
157. 5:58human rights things which the university
158. 6:01of connecticut and many others are
159. 6:02striving to do
160. 6:04can it be done of course it can be done
161. 6:07i have seen in my life that doing the
162. 6:09impossible is very possible they used to
163. 6:11say when i was young it's like landing
164. 6:13on the moon yes i have pictures of an
165. 6:15american flag being flown on the moon by
166. 6:18an american astronaut we have women
167. 6:21today who not only are deans of the law
168. 6:24schools who sit on the supreme court of
169. 6:26the united states our constitution
170. 6:28didn't give them right even to vote or
171. 6:30to own property we have seen the end of
172. 6:32colonialism we have seen the end of
173. 6:34slavery more or less all of these things
174. 6:36are imperfect but we have done the
175. 6:38impossible so what's so impossible of
176. 6:40substituting law instead of war senator
177. 6:44god
178. 6:45and his son
179. 6:47were forerunners of that
180. 6:50if you make up your mind
181. 6:51that law is better than war
182. 6:54and law should be the substitute for war
183. 6:56the university of connecticut which has
184. 6:58its law school respected school will
185. 7:00contribute its role to changing the
186. 7:03world
187. 7:04it's important to remember three things
188. 7:07never give up
189. 7:08two never give up three never give up
190. 7:12it's up to the young people to succeed
191. 7:14and i'm sure you can do it