Nuremberg Prosecutor Ben Ferencz Discusses Justice and CJA — Transcript

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1. 0:00my name is Benjamin ferenz
2. 0:03I'm speaking to you from New Rochelle
3. 0:06New York I regret that I cannot be with
4. 0:09you
5. 0:10however I have been invited to make a
6. 0:14few
7. 0:15remarks about what I have been doing
8. 0:18with my life and I am now in my 96th
9. 0:22year
10. 0:22[Music]
11. 0:25my career has revolved around enforcing
12. 0:30the criminal law on an international
13. 0:32level
14. 0:33I was a poor immigrant boy
15. 0:36who came to America in 1920 I served as
16. 0:40a soldier in World War II I entered as a
17. 0:44private in the artillery
18. 0:46by the time I was a sergeant I was busy
19. 0:50investigating the war crimes which were
20. 0:52being committed by the Nazi uh
21. 0:56concentration camps I was a liberator of
22. 1:00many of those camps and I wrote up the
23. 1:04reports from several of the bases of
24. 1:06later war crimes trials when the war was
25. 1:09over I was invited to go back to serve
26. 1:13the U.S army to be in charge of
27. 1:17prosecution of war criminals and what
28. 1:19was the biggest murder trial in human
29. 1:21history I convicted 22 defendants of
30. 1:24murdering over a million people in Cold
31. 1:26Blood
32. 1:28I spent the rest of my years trying to
33. 1:30create an international criminal court
34. 1:32and to hold the rule of law to protect
35. 1:35Humanity as I had argued at Nuremberg
36. 1:38because
37. 1:40the crimes against humanity
38. 1:42of were what was tearing the world apart
39. 1:45the center for justice and
40. 1:47accountability which now exists in
41. 1:49California is probing these problems
42. 1:51which are very difficult but with
43. 1:54dedication progress is being made
44. 1:56substantially crimes are committed by
45. 1:59individuals and those who are
46. 2:00responsible for the crimes should be
47. 2:02held to account in a court of law
48. 2:05everywhere today as I speak there are
49. 2:08crimes being committed against innocent
50. 2:10people who've done nothing wrong while
51. 2:11being killed in various parts of the
52. 2:13world because they don't share the race
53. 2:15or the ideology of conviction of their
54. 2:18executioners there is no excuse for that
55. 2:21and it's time for everyone particularly
56. 2:25the young people to recognize the need
57. 2:27to teach compassion and compromise and
58. 2:30understanding in order to create a more
59. 2:33Humane world
60. 2:36[Music]
61. 2:37foreign