Nuremberg Trials prosector Benjamin Ferencz was met with thunderous applause and a warm reception from approximately 700 people when he recently provided a firsthand account regarding his life experiences at Chabad of Central Boca Raton.
The Nuremberg Trails were a series of military tribunals held by the Allied forces under international law and the laws of war after World War II. Ferencz, 99, of Delray Beach, was responsible for the prosecution of a group of German SS officers accused of committing the largest number of Nazi killings outside of the concentration camps as more than a million men, women and children were shot and killed in towns and villages.
Ferencz, who is the last living Nuremberg prosector, shared several details of his life throughout his presentation at the Chabad center. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1943, Ferencz joined an anti-aircraft artillery battalion for the invasion of France. Under U.S. Army Gen. George S. Patton, he fought in every campaign in Europe. As Nazi atrocities were uncovered, he was transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch of the Army to gather evidence of Nazi brutality and apprehend the criminals. At 27 years old, he became chief prosecutor for the United States at the Nuremburg trials, his first case. There is also a Netflix documentary about the story of his life called “Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz.”
Ferencz received a thunderous applause by the audience when he said, “Regarding the evidence of the Holocaust happening, nobody in my presence will tell me it didn’t happen.”