The Last Living Nuremberg Prosecutor: Ben Ferencz 75 Years Later — Transcript

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1. 0:10Good morning and thank you for joining us for today's episode in our Facebook Live series. I'm
2. 0:16your host, historian Edna Friedberg. 75 years ago this month the allied powers, Great Britain,
3. 0:25France the Soviet Union and the United States opened a series of trials, post-war trials aimed at achieving a measure of justice for the crimes committed
4. 0:35in the course of the Second World War including those of the Holocaust. It was the first time in
5. 0:41history that an international tribunal would punish the leaders of a regime, its military and its enablers in civil society. Please join me in welcoming today's very special honored guest guest Benjamin Ferencz who was a prosecutor
6. 1:14Good morning, Ben. >> Good morning to you, Edna. >> Nice to see you
7. 1:14even though we are many states apart today. >> We will try to correct that soon. >> We appreciate
8. 1:17you being here with us today Ben. Particularly because you are the last remaining prosecutor from Nuremberg who can speak to us about your firsthand accounts. In addition to his time, working in the legal field at
9. 1:25Nuremberg, Ben has devoted his life and legal expertise to creating a more just and peaceful world. And our Museum's
10. 1:34Ferencz International Justice Initiative is also named in his honor. Ben is a long time friend and partner of our institution. Please send
11. 1:42questions by posting them in the comment section and we will get to them as many of them live. If
12. 1:48you experience technical problems, don't worry, rest assured you can return to our Facebook page
13. 1:54and watch the show at your convenience and we hope that you will share it with your friends. So
14. 2:00Ben, we are speaking to you today at age 101 as an accomplished attorney who trained at Harvard
15. 2:12Law School. But nothing in your childhood would have predicted that life or even that you would attend college at all. Could you start by telling us about your family, roots, where you came from? >> I was
16. 2:21born in a little village in a country that no longer exists, Transylvania. My sister was born in the
17. 2:31same bed I was about a year and a half earlier. She was, according to her passport, a Hungarian.
18. 2:57I was born in the same bed and the same place and I was a Romanian. This happened after the first World War, they were trading territories. So from different countries. What they had in common was they were both antisemitic.
19. 3:00I think I was about 9 months old but I think I told my parents, let's get out of town. So they decided they were going
20. 3:05to leave. They left to the United States in a little boat, 3rd class because there was no 4th
21. 3:17class. We landed under the statue of liberty which I have felt very attached ever since. And my father was trained shoe maker and there were
22. 3:32no cowboys that needed boots. So he was able to get a job as a janitor in an apartment house, in
23. 3:39what was called Hell's Kitchen. It was a very high crime density area. I only found that out later when
24. 3:48I became a criminologist. And my earliest recollections are in the cellar of the house. I think it was 346
25. 4:00west 56th street in New York Manhattan. We were very poor, but compared to where we came from, we
26. 4:12didn't notice a difference. My parents were -- it wasn't a very good match. So they divorced. I
27. 4:21was around 6 years of age. My father had taken me to the public school in Manhattan and the
28. 4:31Principal said, we can't take him, he's too small, he doesn't speak any English. So I was late in
29. 4:36getting started. I was taken in by an aunt while my parents were divorced and began school in
30. 4:48Brooklyn. Mostly I was moving around from place to place. Because the landlords would offer
31. 4:55concession, enough to pay rent if you came in, it was Depression years. So we kept moving rather
32. 5:02than pay the rent. >> And Ben, if I could interrupt. You were able to attend college free of
33. 5:09charge, right? >> Yes, um, my 8th grade teacher said, "This boy should go to college." I didn't
34. 5:19know anyone that had been to college, certainly nobody in our family. And they said, if you go to Townsend Haris
35. 5:26High School and he passes those grades at a college level he will be admitted to city college. So, I went to um, Townsend Haris High
36. 5:39School and my mother, nobody didn't know what they meant by gifted boy. Nobody didn't give us any gifts. But I found out the first thing I
37. 5:48learned in highschool was that you had to study. I didn't have to study before. I heard something, I knew it.
38. 5:53When in Townsend Harris they were speaking French, I didn't know any French. I didn't want to
39. 5:59know any French. I had studied algebra. So, I resisted studying some places. But the French I got over because
40. 6:11we lived near a small theater that kept foreign films including films of French actresses and I fell in
41. 6:21love with Danielle Darrieux. So, I used to go to films every night. So I learned how to speak. And so when I was interested I was very good
42. 6:38at. When I wasn't interested, I didn't pay any attention. >> I'm going to interrupt you, even
43. 6:43though I could talk to you for hours and hours. I want to jump ahead to show a photograph that we have of
44. 6:49you when you were a student at Harvard Law School. So you came from this basement apartment in
45. 6:56hells kitchen to the top law school in the United States. >> By the way, they gave me a full
46. 7:05scholarship. >> Well, I guess they knew talent and promise when they saw it and that's where you were when America
47. 7:10went to war in December 1941. I know from talking to you before that you tried to enlist on more than one occasion. What
48. 7:17was that like? And when you finally were admitted to the military, what were your first
49. 7:23assignments? >> Well, they wouldn't take me in the Air Force because they said my legs won't reach
50. 7:31the peddles and I said how about a navigator? And they said, well, if we told you to bomb Berlin you would probably end up in
51. 7:38Tokyo and they wouldn't take me. So they were rejecting me everywhere. I finally got in through the draft as a private in the artillery,
52. 7:48which was supposed to shoot down high flying aircraft and I knew absolutely nothing about guns or guns battalions. And my carreer in the Army, I
53. 8:00would say, I think I was fighting the American Army more than the German Army. Every dirty assignment
54. 8:07they could give me they would say, you're a Harvard, you can do better, clean the toilet again,
55. 8:13and again, and again. There were times when I was tempted to use the broom in ways in which they had not
56. 8:20anticipated. But I refrained. However, I was honorable discharged after 3 years of military
57. 8:29service. They awarded me with 5 battle stars and I said, what's that for? I'm no hero. And they
58. 8:39said, you landed on the beach of Germany and went through the national line, you went through --
59. 8:51crossed the bridge driving a Jeep. So they said, well all that, and you did it without getting killed
60. 8:58or wounded. That's why we give these battle stars. In fact, there were a few of them that got 5
61. 9:05battle stars. But I survived every battle in the war. I had painted on the front of it, always
62. 9:19alone. I said to the Colonel, they were finally assigning me to do war crimes work. I said, just get out of
63. 9:27my way. I'll do the job. And um, I did. And they did get out of my way, and the reason they can
64. 9:36do that, the reason I can do that -- suggest that, while I was at Harvard, I was a poor boy, I had
65. 9:44no money. I worked as a researcher for Professor Shelder who was doing a book on war crimes. And
66. 9:54I was quite an expert on war crimes. >> Before we get to that Ben I want to acknowledge viewers who
67. 10:01are watching from all over the country and world. Good morning and thank you for joining us from
68. 10:06Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, the state of North Carolina. Hello to you in Troy, New York, Harrisburg Pennsylvania and South Carolina. And a welcome to our international
69. 10:16viewers, joining us from Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Italy and a good afternoon to Esther from Israel. We have a far flung
70. 10:29audience. >> I'm very flattered. >> As you said your law training and unusually deep knowledge of war
71. 10:36crimes trials was called upon when you were helped to establish the US Army's first war crimes branch. Could you
72. 10:44tell us about that, when you traveled with liberators who were collecting evidence as they
73. 10:50entered the Nazi camps, what did you see when you were there? >> The Colonel who gave told me my assignment they had no idea, the American
74. 11:00Army had no idea what war crimes meant. What I saw is really indescribable. I learned somewhere that I
75. 11:14had peered into hell. Hell was never as bad as that. Dead bodies lying on the ground. Um,
76. 11:23starving people scrounging in the mounds of garbage, hoping to find a piece of bread or something.
77. 11:36People themselves looked like skeletons, the crematorium was still going. Bodies of people waiting
78. 11:43to be cremated were stacked like wood outside the crematorium. And the SS were fleeing from the
79. 11:54camp. I got there as fast as I could. I knew there was a camp, I jumped into my Jeep and took off. But
80. 12:03the SS were still fighting in different places. I learned a lesson of vengeance at one of the camps, they were all
81. 12:12similar, the inmates caught one of the guards and beat him and put him in the crematorium and took
82. 12:21him out and beat him again and put him in again. Took him out, until he roasted. This taught me
83. 12:34the effect of vengeance, when you let vengeance take over, you end up with roasting your
84. 12:42adversary. And it was a traumatic experience, just to watch it. And of course, I have never
85. 12:52forgotten it. So, I went from camp to camp, collected the evidence I could. Which usually was I would tell the
86. 13:03Colonel I'm here on orders of the President of the United States, I need 10 men immediately surround the office where the records are kept. And he would say why.
87. 13:17And I would say move, now. I had no insignia on my uniform,I refused to wear any insignia. So, I pretended -- to be equal to General Patton and they would immediately respond.
88. 13:38So, I would go to the office which was run by the inmates and there I collected a very valuable evidence,
89. 13:44as to who was in the camp and what they did. They had a list of people who they had killed. They
90. 13:53sent their reports to Berlin, Gestapo headquarters, daily reports. So it was an enlightening experience at that stage.
91. 14:06I moved from camp to camp as quickly as I could. They were all basically similar, I wanted to get
92. 14:13in, get the evidence and get the hell out of there as fast as you can. And that's what I did in
93. 14:20the final months of the war. >> To be clear Ben, you were collecting documents, documentary evidence.
94. 14:30The records kept by the German's themselves of their crimes. >> That was the basic thing, but
95. 14:35there were also additional things. For example, I had 1 case, which was an allied flyer case, cases
96. 14:46where the allied flyers, the American and British had been flying over German hell territory and
97. 14:55for one reason or another the plane crashed. The Aviators, American or British, would get out of the plane if they were still alive,
98. 15:02and would be beaten by a German mob, mostly women. And they would beat the fliers to death. And
99. 15:12um, my job was to go find the body, first of all. And then to get witnesses to testify to who had
100. 15:21killed them. That was a grim job, because if there were a river near by, the body had been thrown
101. 15:32into the river. But often there was nothing, there was a cemetery near by and they had dumped them into a
102. 15:39hole. My job was to get them out of hole, and it was winter time and the ground was hard and um, what I would do is
103. 15:46locate the body and try to find the lakes, put a rope around it, one or two lakes if possible, put them on the back of
104. 15:56my Jeep and slowly pull them out of the water, hoping that I got more than a foot or a leg -- That was also a memorable
105. 16:11assignment. Then we would try to catch the people who had done the job. I would go searching for
106. 16:17them immediately, if they were there. Collecting evidence, giving some sense of it. This one
107. 16:25particular case, I think it was a German town, people in the crowd, mostly women, were beating the
108. 16:34soldier. And the airman would come down and a fireman was on duty, took a big crowbar and smashed
109. 16:44the American flag on the head with it and he was sprayed with American blood. And he said,
110. 16:51"That's what I like, American blood." So I asked what the guys name was. They told me and where does he live. I got the address, got into my
111. 17:00Jeep, I kicked the door down, his wife was home. I said where is so-and-so. She said, he is not
112. 17:08here. I looked inside, I searched the house, there's nobody there. But I found his laundry on the sides, I said, do you do his
113. 17:18laundry? "Yes." It was a shirt with American blood on it. He had said specifically "I like American
114. 17:27blood." So I take the shirt and use that as evidence, with American blood on it. And he was put
115. 17:36on trial. I should mention this context because it's relevant. The mother of the daughter testified
116. 17:44against her and she said, "I said this is no way for a German girl to behave and I tried to pull
117. 17:53her off, but I couldn't." So I interrogated the girl and she said, they had been in a bombing raid
118. 18:20shoe and really I felt sorry for her-- >> So much human misery and I know it's very painful, still emotional to talk about
119. 18:26decades later. Ben, I want to get us to Nuremberg. >> She was pregnant at the time. The
120. 18:46father was the guard who -- a soldier guard who was guarding. He seduced her, forced her or raped
121. 18:54-- I don't know. But I happened to be in Munich where the trial was being held and I recognized
122. 19:05her and she recognized me. And they tried her. I don't know what the sentence was. But it was a
123. 19:11reflection of the human element. Um, I mean, I was sorry for it. Her two kids got killed. >>
124. 19:18Yeah. >> I just put her on house arrest, I said, "Don't go any place without my permission." And
125. 19:26then they picked her up later and put her on trial and I don't know what the sentence was. >> Ben, I know that after all
126. 19:33this investigatory work, you returned home to the US to your sweetheart after the war was over and thought you would embark on a
127. 19:41new chapter but you got a phone call that changed all that. >> Yes. >> What with was that? >> I
128. 19:45got a telegram from the Pentagon, saying "dear sir, we would appreciate it if you would come to Washington, we
129. 19:55want to talk to you." So I proceeded to Washington and there I was greeted by a Colonel by the name of Mickey Marcus. I mention the name because he was a Jewish boy from the lower east side. And he said Ben we want you to go back to
130. 20:11Germany. I said, "The only way you'll get me to go back to Germany, you have to declare war on
131. 20:19Germany again and be losing." He said, "We need you." I said, "3 years? You gave me every --- assignment you could and now you're telling me you need me?
132. 20:32He said, "Yes, you've got the experience, you've been there, you have the academic background. We are trying to set up new
133. 20:39trials." This was to follow up on the international military tribunal case which was already nearing completion. And he said, "we don't have staff, we need you." Anyway, that was another story. I see
134. 20:47you got my admit state here, when 15 may, 1946, I went back into the Army. Not in the Army directly, I wouldn't do that.
135. 20:59But um, they gave me a pass, to um, courthouse, OCC as the Officer Chief of Counsel, that was the
136. 21:10subsequent trials the main set up that the international military tribunal to try another level of German people who were
137. 21:22involved in the crimes. Because I felt and others felt, it wasn't just enough to take a sampling of a few high ranking
138. 21:32guys. Germany was a civilized country. We want to know -- somebody would want to know how it was
139. 21:39that they had went and killed so many people. So we put on a trial against the doctors who
140. 21:45performed the medical experiments, against the lawyers who -- the law against the industrialists who built the concentration camps for slaved labor and who worked them to death and foreign ministers
141. 22:07We had 12 additional trials and hopefully we talk about that later. >> If your just joining us today for the show, Today's guest is Ben
142. 22:12Ferencz and we are discussing the post war Nuremberg Trials at which he was a prosecutor and as Ben just explained the initial trial, the most famous one,
143. 22:18IMT, the International Military Tribunal the best known, but the allies established courts in each of their occupied zones to prosecute German
144. 22:28officials after and American military tribunals presided over 12 major proceedings, which Ben was the main prosecutor of one. Ben, you --
145. 22:38tell us about how you became the lead prosecutor at age 27, no prior courtroom experience in a
146. 22:48trial that the Associated Press called the biggest murder trial in history? >> When I was invited
147. 22:54to come to the Pentagon and they were trying to persuade me to go back into the Army, I was not
148. 23:03going to go back to the Army unless we were going back to war and losing. I said no I am not going back into the Army. So, I went to see a man
149. 23:13colonel Taylor and he is recruiting people for 12 subsequent trials which were going to be put on ---when And the French and British and Russians were partners
150. 23:30with the Americans on that. I went and met with Taylor and he said, "We need you now, you have the
151. 23:40academic background, you have a Harvard, you know honors and all that." He said, "But I've um,
152. 23:50checking on your military record and I find that you're occasionally insubordinate." I said that
153. 23:58is not correct sir, I am not ocassionally insubordinate, I'm usually insubordinate. I never obey an order that I know is illegal or --- I said, I've been checking up on your record too, I
154. 24:09know you're a Harvard man too and I don't think you'll give me that kind of orders. He smiled and
155. 24:15said, "You go with me." I said, "What do you want me to to do? He said, we have the suspects in our jails already in different categories but we don't have the
156. 24:27evidence, you're an expert on collecting the evidence so you go to Berlin where the evidence is located in the various ministries, get us the evidence for the
157. 24:35trials. We have the defendants but we have a defendant with no evidence, we got nothing. If you have the evidence and no
158. 24:42defendant, you've got nothing, so we are going to match them and it will be your job to match
159. 24:47them. So off I went to Berlin. And it wasn't very long there, before one of my researchers -- I
160. 24:56had about 50 researches former Germans, many of them refugees. He said, "Look what I found." He had
161. 25:05a big batch of papers. >> I see them. >> I said, "What's that?" So I looked at it and it said on
162. 25:15the cover, arrived -- I am bragging on my German, it means Situation reports from the Eastern front. And what it was, daily reports
163. 25:31sent by the commanders, all special units known as Einsatzgruppen ----. It was deliberately disguised, it means action groups. Their
164. 25:42assignment was to kill without pity or remorse, every single Jewish man, woman or child they could catch.
165. 25:52That's what they did. They made a big mistake, they made reports of it and they sent the reports to Berlin. In Berlin they were consolidated. I was in Berlin and I had my researcher guy The guy came in and said, look
166. 26:03what I got? I looked at it and go, everybody who was a member of these special exterminations, I
167. 26:11knew when they entered which town, I knew from their report how many Jews they killed, how many -- sometimes gypsies they
168. 26:21threw in the pot. And I sat out a little adding machine and added them up. I reached over 100
169. 26:31people murdered, according to their reports. I got on the next plane, flew out to Nuremberg, and I met with ---
170. 26:41who had been promoted to General, I said General we have to put on a new trial. He said, we can't. The Pentagon has approved it, the budget is set. The lawyers are all ready. All
171. 26:50assigned. And we just can't put on a new trial. I said, you can't let these bastard go free, you
172. 26:58just can't let them go. And he said, "Well, can you do it in addition to your other
173. 27:04responsibilities?" I said, "Sure." He said, "Okay, you do it". >> This murder of over 1 million
174. 27:18innocent civilians wasn't taking place in the death camps in the killing centers -- >> This was taking wherever you caught them, you didn't have to have a special factory like a concentration
175. 27:27camp or special equipment like gas, they just rounded them up, shot them or put them together and
176. 27:40marched them out of town where they had prearranged, they knew there was a ditch and shoot them one at a
177. 27:50time, jump them, head first into the ditch, men, women. Children. Little children, one of my lead app defendants
178. 28:00would smash their head against the tree and said we don't like to do that so let the woman hold
179. 28:07her baby and aim for the child because you shoot the kid and you'll shoot the mother at the same
180. 28:13time, she'll be quiet and you will save ammunition. I didn't like like smashing the heads against the
181. 28:21tree, which was one of the favorite techniques. And these special extermination known as einsatzgruppen um,whatever that means
182. 28:31they had murdered over a million people that way. Including thousands of children. And every
183. 28:38time, they advance east ward into Poland, Romania, Hungary, that's what they did. >> We have
184. 28:51footage from your opening argument at the trial for these murderers. I would like to take a look and see 27-year-old you opening your
185. 28:56presentation of the case. Let's have a look. >> I can recite it. >> Ben, we have a couple of
186. 29:42questions from viewers. A viewer name Nicole is asking, what pressure did you feel taking on the
187. 29:49largest murder trial in history at the age of 27? And middle school student named Craton asks if
188. 29:57you were scared or intimidated giving your first speech in court? >> I remember writing the speech
189. 30:10a couple of days before the opening trial, the day before I was sitting in the Nuremberg
190. 30:15courtroom, Sunday by myself, and polishing it. The film that you saw didn't start rolling until
191. 30:23after I said the first sentence. The first sentence was It is with sorrow and with hope that we hear this. And then I
192. 30:31went to say the murder of all the innocent people. The sorrow was my feeling for the victims. I had seen the victims dead and dying.
193. 30:43And hope was that we wouldn't have to do that again, that this would be, we would learn something
194. 30:51from this trial which would protect us in the future. That's what I meant by this opening
195. 30:57sentence. And that's what, um, motivated me, throughout the trial. First in the selection of the
196. 31:06defendants. I was an enlisted man. I knew that often they gave them the dirty job and the blame.
197. 31:15I didn't want any enlisted men in my dock. I was limited by the ridiculous reason that only 22
198. 31:23defendants in the International Military Tribunal trial, I was told we don't want to have more than that. We had 24, so we reduced to 22 or whatever.
199. 31:36And so we had 22 defendants. And um 3000 mass murders. 3000 members divided into A, B, C, D, they
200. 31:51did the same thing, murdered all the Jews. And I had the proof. And I um -- well, how do I pick
201. 32:0222 defendants? Every single one of them, without any doubt, mass murderer. So according to their
202. 32:15rank and education. I wanted high ranking officers. I had 6 or 8 generals, SS generals. And I
203. 32:27had many of the defendants, one of them had two doctor titles. Dr. Dr. Rush. And um, so that was
204. 32:42a reason the way I selected the men. And the question, what do I ask for? You ask in a criminal trial for justice.
205. 32:50But how can you have justice and scales of justice, which means a million people murdered and you
206. 32:56have 22 defendants? There's no way that you can balance those scales. I did take cutting them up
207. 33:08to a million pieces and feeding to the dogs. But that wasn't a serious thought but it went through my
208. 33:12mind, how else can you balance a scale? I thought if I can get a judgment which will protect
209. 33:22everybody that would be worthwhile. And in my case, the Eingsatzgruppen case the victims were slaughtered because they
210. 33:30didn't share the race, religion or ideology of their Nazi executioners and I thought that was horrible. And if we could protect them against that happening again because of
211. 33:42their color, race, they being Jewish or not Jewish, then that would be enforceable and a step forward in the law. That's
212. 33:51what I tried to do and explained that to the court and they understood it and gave me that in
213. 33:58their judgment. So I was pleased, when I had a case could say, look these were the guys that were murdered
214. 34:07people because of their race or their religion, they were sentenced to death and executed. That's what
215. 34:17they deserved. That's how it came about. Did I feel nervous about it? I wasn't the least bit
216. 34:28nervous. I was angry I was anxious whether I could get the courts to accept what I was arguing. But I wasn't nervous at all because I didn't murder anybody. They
217. 34:38were nervous. I said in my closing statement, I said, "These men" and I pointed to them "wrote
218. 34:47the blackest page in human history. Life was their toy and death was their tool. If these men be immune, then law has lost its meaning and we must all live in
219. 34:58fear." So um, the parameters of what I was going to say, and I rested my case in 2 days and I
220. 35:21convicted all of them. And I didn't call a single witness. I don't need any witnesses, I have the strong documents, top
221. 35:22secret. Witness testimony is fallible testimony. Did you assign this report? General SS Yes. What do you have
222. 35:31to say. Oh, superior orders. Whatever they would gave me. 2 days they convicted all of them and 14 of them were
223. 35:45sentenced to death. So I was not nervous. Was I jubilant? No I was not. The courtroom was quiet as a mouse
224. 35:54after having 1 day of reading the judgment. The next day was the sentencing. The defendants were located in the
225. 36:02prison right under the courtroom. Came up in a little lift into the courtroom, the doors would open in small entrance, defendant would come out,
226. 36:18the crimes for which you will be convicted, this tribunal sentences you to death by hanging. Then put him down, step back, boom,
227. 36:29the door would close, drop down into hell. Next one, for the crimes that you have been convicted,
228. 36:37this tribunal sentences to you, death by hangings, death by hanging. Not a sound in the courtroom. No cheering. No saying of hooray or you deserve it you dirty bastards.
229. 36:47Nothing of the kind nor on my part. I was, um, I had a terrible headache every time they said death by hanging,
230. 36:57you could have hammered by head with a hammer. And the evidence of that is that it was customary
231. 37:06that the chief prosecutor would invite his staff to party when the trials were over. I had invited
232. 37:15staff to come to my home for a party. I went home and I said, the party is off, I'm going to bed.
233. 37:25So they had their party without me. So it was a gruelling experience, would be more accurate way. I
234. 37:34had no sympathy for the mass murderers. But the whole process of um, trying to balance a million
235. 37:45murders was a very serious thing. I took it seriously and I, um, I still do. >> It's an impossible
236. 37:57calculus. I want to share comments coming in live from viewers. A woman named Adel writes thank you from the
237. 38:06bottom of my heart, Mr. Ferencz. As the daughter of two Holocaust survivors and proud mom of two sons who graduated from Harvard, I feel a connection to you and
238. 38:14your work. You are brilliant. >> Well, thank you very much. I do appreciate such comments. >>
239. 38:23And another viewer Alesandra on a person note, my grandfather Dr. Henry Kelerman landed at the statue
240. 38:37of liberty in 1938l and then joined you later to prosecute the Nazis at Nuremberg. So there are people who are connecting with you on a
241. 38:47personal level with your recollections. I want to move on to another thing, actually. Apple didn't fall far from the tree.
242. 38:55You are a father and your son Don has followed in your footsteps and become a human rights lawyer himself. And we have a clip
243. 39:03of Don talking about you and your work. I would like to have a look of that, if we could. >> Ben,
244. 39:46I know we are just scratching the surface in this short program. You have devoted decades after the war, your
245. 39:52life's work to fostering an international system of justice aimed at deterring future crimes,
246. 40:01promoting piece. At its core, our Museum is an educational institution. What do you hope people learn in your
247. 40:10experience? >> I am overwhelmed with the correspondence I get from young people in different parts
248. 40:18of the world. They are like the brief clip my son referred to. They recognize that what I was
249. 40:28trying to do was to prevent the recurrence of that type of evil behavior. I have got practically
250. 40:43no letters ever saying, "oh, you're so-and-so, you just take revenge on the Germans." None. I've
251. 40:52never gotten a letter like that. And I have gotten literally hundreds of letters people saying
252. 40:57"what you are doing is right, how can we help?" That encourages me to keep going, even when I'm
253. 41:05past 101. Because the danger is still there. People are still going to war, people are still
254. 41:13killing themselves. There's still racial hatreds in the world and the lessons has to be repeated or the people
255. 41:27will commit the crimes again and again, and they are, in different places, in different degree. Never as
256. 41:36systematically as the Nazis. But it is still going on, killing innocent people. But they are trying to flee away from the risk of being in a war torn
257. 41:51country. And then some of them to get to the United States, the land which gave me my freedom. send me your homeless, your tired, they are greeted
258. 41:59by a President who says, we don't want them in here, take the child away from the mother and send
259. 42:05the woman back and we will take care of the kid. That's outrageous. That's a crime against humanity.
260. 42:10That's committed by the United States. And I'm ashamed of the United States doing something like
261. 42:22that. So I have reactions from the public and also from the government. And um, fortunately, this
262. 42:29administration is going to go out fairly soon, I hope. And they were the ones who the President
263. 42:38issued a presidential order several months ago trying to close down the International Criminal
264. 42:44Court, which I worked all of my life to try to create. And the President said if they dare to
265. 42:54investigate an American for anything, we will -- we will revoke the passports and block the
266. 43:02accounts of the staff of the International Criminal Court, which existed in the follow up
267. 43:12Nuremberg tribunal. So, we have been trying to build a legal order which will deter people from
268. 43:20committing that time of crime. And we weren't getting much help from the current administration,
269. 43:27which I hope is on its way out, and that they may have more positive results from the next
270. 43:35administration. >> We have several more viewer questions that I would like to pose to you. Thank
271. 43:41you for giving me the --- to interrupt you. A viewer wants to ask after living for 101 years
272. 43:52are you more encouraged or discouraged by humanity? >> I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I'm
273. 44:01a realist. The progress has been fantastic, fantastic. Because we have, I was raised the same
274. 44:11way. Glorified war making. It has been a great thing, for centuries, we have praised the heroes
275. 44:20who fought in the wars. And um, now, we have a court, finally, to pick up where Nuremberg left
276. 44:31off, and try to hold people accountable for aggression, war, for crimes against humanities, some
277. 44:42of which I've described to you, and war crimes. If there's no court to try them, there is no
278. 44:47other alternative, and combatting to start killing each other, which is what they do and have been
279. 44:58doing. It's very dangerous. More dangerous than ever. I know. I was confided 10 years ago by an
280. 45:07American General who was active in the production of cyberspace weapons. We have the capacity today from cyberspace
281. 45:19to cut off the electrical grid on planet earth. If we do that how long will it take for everybody
282. 45:26to die? He said, I don't think we have ran studies on that but I would guess it depends on how
283. 45:32much water they had, if they had enough water they probably could survive for about a week. For a wekk? We
284. 45:45kill everyone in a week? That's the future. For the young generations. Wake up. And the past is
285. 45:57worse than we have had before. I count on the young people to recognize that what I am saying is true. Law is always better than war. If anybody doubts that they are
286. 46:15stupid or vicious. We have to avoid war making and turn to peaceful means only to settle our
287. 46:23disputes, no matter what they are and Even if they were wrong decisions it would be better going out and killing all of
288. 46:33your neighbors that have nothing to do with whatever your complaint was. So that's the world as I
289. 46:38se it. And I cannot help but be optimistic because we go up and we come down. We have troubles, goes down again.
290. 46:58--- but the trend has been upward. We do have an International Criminal Court they represent over 130 nations, have signed on
291. 47:06to that in Rome. I was there in Rome. I made an opening speech --- I said I come to Rome to speak
292. 47:16for those who cannot speak, the victims. That's what I've been doing, trying to speak for the
293. 47:23victims that cannot speak, and there's a lot of opposition to it. >> You speak tirelessly with
294. 47:35clarity and conviction. Two final questions, one from Williams, have you had a thought about
295. 47:42retiring or settling down? >> No. I have thought, what would be more interesting than what I do or more important?
296. 47:50Playing golf? That's a ridiculous thing to do. No, I think that's quite ridiculous. I'm never
297. 47:57going to retire. I'm going to go down fighting for what I hope to achieve. I won't achieve it in
298. 48:09full, but we are making progress, I'm not discouraged. >> As a final question Ben, you've been told
299. 48:16"no" a lot in your 101 years from your first attempts to enlist, to the initial plea to get
300. 48:26prosecutors assigned but that has never stopped you when you believed in something. What has fueled
301. 48:32you to keep fighting, whwat are words that have inspired you and maybe could inspire us? >> I will give you
302. 48:413 words which will sum it up. Law not war. If you're in a war, the way the wars are going, you're going to kill
303. 48:51everybody. You must --- the system of law which deters from trying to settle disputes by
304. 49:02forceful means only. If we don't have a court we don't have instrumentality for that. That's
305. 49:09what this government has been trying to kill it for and those who oppose it. >> Ben, what about
306. 49:15ordinary people who may feel discouraged who are not lawyers, not in position of power? >> I give them 3
307. 49:23pieces of advice. One, never give up. Two, never give up. 3? >> Never give up. Absolutely. >>
308. 49:32You got it. >> Ben, I want to say, I know I speak for many, many thousands of people when I say
309. 49:40that the combustible spark that was ignited in you by the terrible things you saw, it's
310. 49:46contagious. You really, really inspire and make us want to keep fighting the good fight. I want
311. 49:53to thank you very much for all of your work and joining us for today's program, 75 years after the
312. 50:00start of the Nuremberg Trials. Thank you Ben. >> You're welcome. I welcome all the help you can give me. Thank
313. 50:07you for that. >> I want viewers to know, to be able to share many, many more recordings from the
314. 50:17International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, that include 775 hours of audio. And more than 6 hours of film
315. 50:28courtesy of the International Court of Justice and you'll find a sample in the links that we share
316. 50:37after today's program. Ben Ferencz has helped to define international criminal law and has been and continues to be one of the most effective change makers in the pursuit
317. 50:45of justice. Ben, we are grateful, the structures that you have put in place can help contain human nature
318. 50:52and we will be putting more links into the comment section for people to learn about that. More
319. 50:57about this history and also about the Holocaust Museum;s, Ferencz International Justice Initiative.
320. 51:06We want to wish our American viewers a happy Thanksgiving holiday. We will come live on Wednesday
321. 51:15December 16th after the holiday, at our regular time at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time in the United States, with a show titled
322. 51:22Rescued Recipes, Heroic Actions That Saved Family Treasures. Our guest during that program will be Holocaust survivor and Museum volunteer
323. 51:31Steven Fenves accompanied by James Beard award-winning chef Alon Shaya who will be sharing personal stories and recipes rescued by Steven’s family cook
324. 51:42when he and his family were forced from their home in Yugoslavia and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
325. 51:48So until then, be well, be healthy and we hope to see you soon. Bye-bye