Benjamin Ferencz, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials that held Nazi criminals accountable after World War II, died at the age of 103. According to the United States Holocaust Museum, he was the last living prosecutor of those trials and “a leader in the quest for justice for victims of genocide and related crimes.” Ferencz died on Friday in a care facility in Florida, U.S. media reported on Saturday, citing his son Don Ferencz.
Born in 1920 in Transylvania to Orthodox Jewish parents, Ferencz emigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in modest circumstances in New York. He later attended Harvard Law School. Before becoming a historic prosecutor, he served as a U.S. soldier and witnessed the liberation of several concentration camps, uncovering the Nazis’ appalling crimes. Not even 30 years old, he was already trying Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany.
The main trial at the International Military Tribunal began in late November 1945, when the victorious Allies put top Nazis—including Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess and Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring—on trial in the city Hitler had intended as the center of his Reich. The proceedings lasted almost a year and ended with 12 death sentences. From 1946 to 1949, twelve subsequent Nuremberg trials followed. Ferencz served as chief prosecutor in one of these, focusing on the roaming Nazi death squads known as the Einsatzgruppen. That trial resulted in 20 officials being found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and membership in a criminal organization for their roles in the murder of over a million people; two others were convicted on lesser charges.
Ferencz later described the International Court of Justice in The Hague—whom he called his “baby” after fighting for its establishment—as a direct descendant of the Nuremberg legacy. In a 2020 interview with dpa, he reflected, “I learned that a war can make mass murderers out of otherwise decent people… War itself destroys all sense of morality, and it’s been glorified for centuries.” He urged younger generations to follow his example, saying, “We must protect the rights, the minimum rights of all human beings to live in peace and dignity in every country. That’s my goal. If you share the goal, do whatever you can.”
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