Ben Ferencz, the last living Nuremberg prosecutor, has died at age 103 | 60 Minutes

60 Minutes rewind not often you get the chance to meet a man who holds a place in history like Ben farenz he's 97 years old barely five feet tall and he served as prosecutor of what's been called the biggest murder trial ever the courtroom was Nuremberg the crime genocide the defendants a group of German SS officers accused of committing the largest number of Nazi killings outside the concentration camps more than a million men women and children shot down in their own towns and villages in Cold Blood forens is the last Nuremberg prosecutor alive today but he isn't content just to be part of 20th century history he believes he has something important to offer the world right now you know you have seen the ugliest side of humanity yes you've really seen evil and look at you you're the sunniest man I've ever met the most optimistic at some old friends oh this is nice watching Ben ferrands during his daily swim all right his gym workout I'm showing off now and his morning push-up regimen 100 is to realize he isn't just the sunniest man we've ever met he may also be the fittest and that's just the beginning the case we present is a plea of humanity to law this is forens making his opening statement in the Nuremberg courtroom 70 years ago the charges we have brought accuse the defendants of having committed crimes against humanity the Nuremberg trials after World War II were historic the first International war crimes tribunals ever held Hitler's top lieutenants were prosecuted first then a series of subsequent trials were mounted against other Nazi leaders including 22 SS officers responsible for killing more than a million people not in concentration camps but in towns and Villages across Eastern Europe they would never have been brought to Justice were it not for Ben for rent he looked so young I was so young I was 27 years old had you prosecuted trials before never in my life kind of recall if I'd ever been in a courtroom actually Perez had immigrated to the U.S as a baby the son of poor Jewish parents from a small town in Romania he grew up in a tough New York City neighborhood where his father found work as a janitor when I was taking the school at the age of seven I couldn't speak English spoke Yiddish at home and I was very small and so they wouldn't let me in so you didn't speak English till you were eight that's correct could you read no on the contrary the silent movies always had writing on it and I would ask my father who was Lucas and in Yiddish what does it say what does it say he couldn't read it either foreign he became the first in his family to go to college then got a scholarship to Harvard Law School but during his first semester the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he like many classmates raced to enlist he wanted to be a pilot but the Army Air corps wouldn't take him and he said you know you're too short your legs won't reach the pedals the Marines they just looked at me and said forget it kid so he finished at Harvard then enlisted as a private in the Army part of an artillery Battalion he landed on the beach at Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge toward the end of the war because of his legal training he was transferred to a brand new unit in General Patton's third Army created to investigate war crimes as U.S forces liberated concentration camps his job was to rush in and gather evidence ferenz told us he is still haunted by the things he saw and the stories he heard in those camps a father who my son told me the story his father had died just as we were entering the camp and the father had routinely saved a piece of his bread for his son and he kept it under his arm at night [Music] he kept it under his arm at night so the other inmates wouldn't steal it you know so you see these human stories which are not they're not real they're not real but they were real ferenz came home married his childhood sweetheart and vowed never to set foot in Germany again but that didn't last long General Telford Taylor in charge of the Nuremberg trials asked him to direct a team of researchers in Berlin one of whom found a cache of top secret documents in the ruins of the German foreign Ministry he gave me a bunch of a binders full binders and these were daily reports from the Eastern Front which unit entered which town how many people they killed classified so many Jews so many gypsies so many others France had stumbled upon reports sent back to headquarters by secret SS units called einsatzgruppen or action groups their job had been to follow the German Army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and kill Communists Gypsies and especially Jews there were three thousand SS officers trained for the purpose and directed to kill Without Pity or remorse every single Jewish man woman and child they could lay their hands on so they went right in after the troops someone behind the troop round up the Jews kill them all only one piece of film is known to exist of the einsatz group and at work it isn't easy to watch well this is a typical operation well see I hear this they rounded them up they all have already tags on them they're making them run to their own death yes it was a rabbi coming along there just put them in a dead shoot him there oh my God oh my God yeah this footage came to light years later at the time farens just had the documents and he started adding up the numbers when I reached over a million people murdered that way over a million people if more people than you've ever seen in your life I took a sample I got on the next plane flew from Berlin down to Nuremberg and I said to Taylor General we've got to put on a new trial but the trials were already underway and prosecution staff was stretched thin Taylor told forens adding another trial was impossible and I started screaming I said look I got here mass murder mass murderer on a parallel scale and he said can you do this in addition to your other work and I said sure he said okay so you'll do it and that's how 27 year old Ben firenz became the chief prosecutor of 22 Einstein's group and commanders at trial number nine at Nuremberg how do you plead to this indictment guilty or not guilty not guilty but for Rands knew they were guilty and could prove it without calling a single witness he entered into evidence the defendant's own reports of what they had done exhibit 111 in the last 10 weeks we have liquidated around 55 000 Jews exhibit 179 from Kiev in 1941. the Jews of the city were ordered to present themselves about 34 000 reported including women and children after they had been made to give up their clothing and valuables all of them were killed which took several days exhibit 84 from einsight's group in D in March of 1942 total number executed so far 91 678 einsight's group in D was the unit of forens lead defendant Otto olendorf he didn't deny the killings he had the gall to claim they were done in self-defense it was not ashamed of that he was proud of that he was carrying out his government's instructions how did you not hit him there was only one time I wanted to really one of these my defensive he gets up and he says which is what the Jews were shot I hear it here for the first time boy I felt if I had a bayonet I would have jumped over the thing I put a bayonet why she wanted and let it come out the other you know you know I've got his reports of how many killed you know I'm an innocent left did you look at the defendant's faces defense phase will blank all the time Defenders absolutely blank they could like this they're waiting and waiting for a bus what was going on inside of you of me yeah I'm still churning to this minute I'm still churning all 22 defendants were found guilty and four of them including olendorf were hanged faren says his goal from the beginning was to affirm the rule of law and deter similar crimes from ever being committed again did you meet a lot of people who perpetrated war crimes who would otherwise in your opinion have been just a normal upstanding citizen of course here's my answer these men would never have been murderers had it not been for the war these were people who could quote Goethe Who Loved Wagner who were polite what turns a man into a Savage Beast like that he's not a Savage he's an intelligent patriotic Savage when he does the murder though no he's a patriotic human being acting in the interest of his country in his mind you don't think they turn into Savages even for the ACT do you think the man who dropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima was a Savage and now I will tell you something very profound which I have learned after many years war makes murderous out of otherwise decent people all wars and all recent people the story will continue after this so for rent has spent the rest of his life trying to deter war and war crimes by establishing an international Court like Nuremberg he scored a victory when the international criminal court in The Hague was created in 1998. they'd please your honors he delivered the closing argument in the Court's first case now you've been at this for 50 years if not more we've had genocide since then and going on right this minute going on right this minute and so Dan we've had Rwanda we've had Bosnia you're not getting very far what don't say that people get discouraged they should remember from me it takes courage not to be discouraged did anybody ever say that you're naive of course some people say I'm crazy well if it's naive to want peace instead of War let us make sure they say I'm naive because I want peace instead of War if they tell me they want war instead of peace I don't see the naive I say they're stupid stupid to an incredible degree to send young people out to kill other young people they don't even know who never did anybody any harm never harm them that is the current system I am naive that's insane thanks thank you very much for rent is legendary in the world of international law and he's still at it are you going to help me save the world I heard so it's up to you he never stops pushing his message Holocaust Museum he says he's grateful for the life he's lived in this country and it's his turn to give back you are such an idealist I don't think of an idealist I'm a realist and I see the progress the progress has been remarkable look at emancipation of women in my lifetime your city has a female look what's happened to the same-sex marriages you to tell somebody a man can become a woman a woman can become a man and a man can marry a man they always said you're crazy but it's a reality today so the world is changing and you shouldn't you know be despairing because it never happened before nothing new ever happened before but we're on a roll we're marching forward Ben I'm sitting here listening to you and you're very wise and you're full of energy and passion and I can't believe you're 97 years old well I'm still a young man clearly and I'm still in there fighting and you know what keeps me going I know I'm right

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 283,705

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, ben ferencz, nazis, genocide, nuremberg

Id: R-uxyrHJ_mE

Length: 13min 46sec (826 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 09 2023