Book Symposium on ‘Nuremberg’s Citizen Prosecutor’: “One Little Guy from Transylvania” – Benjamin Ferencz and the Power of Persistence

[Martha Minow is the 300th Anniversary University Professor and former Dean of Harvard Law School, where her scholarship focuses on human rights, justice, and the aftermath of mass violence. She is the author of numerous influential works, including Between Vengeance and Forgiveness (1998), and has served on multiple national commissions and boards addressing legal reform and social justice.]

What can one person do in the face of great violence, suffering, and injustice? It is so understandable to feel overwhelmed and inadequate – and hence both fascinating and powerful to see up close how someone can act, over and over, across a lifetime, to address mass murder, torture, war, and violations of human dignity. Professor Gregoy Gordon offers precisely this intimate and detailed view of the truly remarkable—and irrepressible—Benjamin Ferencz. The list of his accomplishments. Impressive as it is, understates his influence and standing alone, affords no insight into how one person could do what he did. He investigated war crimes at the end of his military service during World War II and served at the age of 27 as chief prosecutor before the Nuremberg Military Tribunal for the trial of individuals involved in killing at least one million people from June 1941 (188-236). He helped establish reparation and rehabilitation programs for the survivors of Nazi persecution including work as a negotiator for the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany and for initial German Restitution Law (270-271, 286-296270-2710. As an author and teacher, he advocated for a permanent international criminal court, joined in negotiations leading to its design and establishment (pp. 359-372), and participated in its first trial as a special counsel assisting the Office of the Prosecutor (384-388). He played a key role in conceiving and establishing national aggression as a war crime (364-67, 377-384). 

Ferencz himself posed the vital question: “how did one little guy from Transylvania go about trying to reform the world”? Gordon’s meticulous research combined archival materials and hours of interviews with Ferencz before he passed away. The narrative gives a glimpse of the mysterious and uncanny combination of biographical facts, intellectual talent, and personal qualities of tenacity and charm that animated Ferencz’s motivations and actions. 

Gordon reflected after the book’s publication that Ferencz 

was a great Nazi war crimes investigator because, as a buck private fighting Nazis, he understood how military units functioned from the ground up. He was a great prosecutor of Nazi war crimes because he had been a Nazi war crimes investigator. And he was a great lawyer for Nazi war crimes victims because he had prosecuted them. Unlike anyone else in history, he was literally the human connective tissue between Nazi investigations, prosecutions and reparations. He innovated and modeled best practices at each stage and was therefore such an important pioneer.

Immigrating to New York City as a child, and exposed to a crime-ridden neighborhood, Ferencz decided to focus on crime and studied law on a scholarship to Harvard Law School. Ingredients thus included early motivation, talent, and education and then unforgettable experiences as a soldier on the beaches of Normandy and Battle of the Bulge and then as an investigator charged to collect evidence for war crimes trials from just-liberated concentration camps. He saw and never forgot the unspeakable horrors and suffering. This helped to fuel his passion and dedication as an investigator and prosecutor. Clarity of purpose and expression mattered as well. He later recalled the argument at his first trial, “We ask this court to affirm by international penal action man’s right to live in peace and dignity, regardless of his race or creed. The case we present is a plea of humanity to law.”

After the work in the Nuremberg tribunal, he needed to make money to support his family, and he did. But he decided at the age of 50 to devote the rest of his life to trying to stop atrocities of war. Where does that kind of decision come from? Searing memories combined with moral belief, stubbornness, and self-confidence? 

Independent and funny, he believed that “Honey will get you more flies than I don’t know what– something else.” But his tenacity was key. On the topic of criminalizing war, he recounted, “I’ve heard 1,000 times there’s no definition of aggression.” He worked on the issue for over 60 years. Gordon stresses resilience and also coming of age as Hitler’s power grew and World War II began (37-48). Ferencz talked more about his successes than his failures. He persevered despite the failure to obtain evidence of crimes against peace while successfully prosecuting industrialists for their crimes against humanity in employing forced labor during World War II (247).

As a teacher of law students, I often talk about Ben Ferencz. I hope his story can inspire them, I would not wish for them many crucial elements of his life, including witnessing the concentration camps. But I hope there is something contagious about his spirit—captured in words Gordon uses to close his book: “Never Give up” (391).