Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
Ben Ferencz, a former prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials who secured convictions against 22 Nazi death squad commanders, has died. He was 103.
In response to a question about the war in Ukraine and the rise in antisemitic incidents around the globe, he said that "the world has still not learned the lessons of Nuremberg."
Another question was about his secret to living such a long life. "Luck!," he responded at the time.
Ferencz turned 103 on March 11. A photo posted to his official Twitter page showed him in a wheelchair holding a small piece of paper that read, "Do something you love."
Ferencz, born in 1920 to Hungarian Jews, was 10 months old when his family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. He grew up poor on the rough and tumble streets of Hell’s Kitchen, where his father worked as a janitor-turned-house painter.
He attended the City College of New York and earned a scholarship to Harvard Law School. He enlisted in the Army after graduation as World War II engulfed Europe, landing in Normandy and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.
He was later transferred to a unit responsible for gathering evidence of war crimes as the allied forces closed in on the center of the Nazi power in Berlin. Ferencz traveled to multiple concentration camps — Buchenwald, Mauthause, Flossenburg, Ebensee — often within days and sometimes hours of their liberation.
Ferencz said it was "grim as hell" and he "had to refrain from letting it get to me emotionally" so it did not interfere with his job of securing Nazi records before they were destroyed.
"My goal was clear: Grab the documents," he said. "I headed straight to the main office and closed it off. 'Nobody goes in or out without my permission. No German, no American — nobody. I want complete control of the archives,' which I got."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...d?cvid=1d80e0ba90f04c01bdaa64d27d6b2e57&ei=16
In response to a question about the war in Ukraine and the rise in antisemitic incidents around the globe, he said that "the world has still not learned the lessons of Nuremberg."
Another question was about his secret to living such a long life. "Luck!," he responded at the time.
Ferencz turned 103 on March 11. A photo posted to his official Twitter page showed him in a wheelchair holding a small piece of paper that read, "Do something you love."
Ferencz, born in 1920 to Hungarian Jews, was 10 months old when his family immigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. He grew up poor on the rough and tumble streets of Hell’s Kitchen, where his father worked as a janitor-turned-house painter.
He attended the City College of New York and earned a scholarship to Harvard Law School. He enlisted in the Army after graduation as World War II engulfed Europe, landing in Normandy and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge.
He was later transferred to a unit responsible for gathering evidence of war crimes as the allied forces closed in on the center of the Nazi power in Berlin. Ferencz traveled to multiple concentration camps — Buchenwald, Mauthause, Flossenburg, Ebensee — often within days and sometimes hours of their liberation.
Ferencz said it was "grim as hell" and he "had to refrain from letting it get to me emotionally" so it did not interfere with his job of securing Nazi records before they were destroyed.
"My goal was clear: Grab the documents," he said. "I headed straight to the main office and closed it off. 'Nobody goes in or out without my permission. No German, no American — nobody. I want complete control of the archives,' which I got."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...d?cvid=1d80e0ba90f04c01bdaa64d27d6b2e57&ei=16