Luck!. What does $10 million in charity mean when it comes from men whose combined net worth is estimated to be $21 billionaccrued at the expense of Russian citizens whose average annual income hovers below $11,000? But Telford said it wasnt possible. U.K. announced sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs, new long-term strategic partnership, who has given more than $500 million to Jewish causes worldwide, petitioned the U.S. embassy to keep him from being sanctioned, would do the bidding for a man linked to corrupt financial activity and the Kremlin, according to a 2020 report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, found himself locked out of the company he founded in London, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskyy tweeted the day Russian missiles rained down on Babin Yar, far-right, anti-Semitic, extremist violence. Throughout his career, he has made use of every tool in the justice toolbox: collecting evidence and documenting the atrocities of the Holocaust; prosecuting cases against war criminals; representing victims in their restitution claims; developing new norms, laws, and treaties; helping to build the political will for new international courts; and writing, teaching, and inspiring the next generation of justice champions. Although he witnessed atrocities as a US soldier in the Second World Benjamin Ferencz, Nuremberg Prosecutor and Peace Advocate. Please enter valid email address to continue. Benjamin Ferencz: I don't think I'm an idealist. A testament to his commitment to these efforts, Mr. Ferencz partnered with the Museum to launch the Ferencz International Justice Initiative in 2017 to coincide with the 70-year anniversary of the Einsatzgruppen Trial at Nuremberg, in which he was Chief Prosecutor. I spoke with Polish journalist, Jewish activist and author of Living in the Land of Ashes Konstanty Gebert about Yad Vashems lobbying against sanctions. As for the oligarchs claims that they have nothing to do with Putin or his war in Ukraine, Ferencz adds: I dont buy it. Benjamin Ferencz, who turned 100 in March, remains a fundamentally optimistic person. The last surviving prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials against Nazi leadership, he has worked tirelessly as a champion of international law and human rights. The Royal Academy of London also tendered the resignation of its trustee, Alfa-Bank head Petr Aven. She warns of contemporary parallels and strikes a chord with many of her listeners. After the sentencing, Ferencz decided to meet with Ohlendorf in a courtroom holding cell. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ferencz is one of the most iconic voices in the field of international justice. As an authorized representative of the Jewish Claims Conference, he later worked tirelessly for the reparations agreement between Israel and West Germany, which was signed in Luxembourg in 1952. Part of an artillery battalion, he landed on the beach at Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. During that period, he was also called in to help negotiate a reparations agreement with the government of West Germany. Good morning, he hollered. The Cold Warbetween the Eastern Bloc and the Western powers had begun, putting the horrors of World War II in the shadows. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. It was pure luck that he survived the war, he later said. But it's a reality today. Ben Ferencz at his home in in Delray Beach, Fla., in 2016. After being honorably discharged from the army, Ferencz returned to the US andbeganlooking for a job as a lawyer, but he didn't search for long. But he is still in good spirits, still has his sense of humor and, when not too tired, is still perfectly cogent and well-reasoning.. At the age of 27, Mr. Ferencz was appointed Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, in what the Associated Press called the biggest murder trial in history. The Court found 20 Nazi officials guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and membership in a criminal organization for their roles in the murder of over a million people. Benjamin Ferencz: When I reached over a million people murdered that way, over a million people, that's more people than you've ever seen in your life, I took a sample. Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, answered the phone in bright spirits. Look what's happened to the same-sex marriages. He is compelled by the imperative to replace the rule of force with the rule of law, by ending warfare in favor of judicial mechanisms that can resolve conflict. But Ben always spoke about it as if he had no other choice given what the survivors endured, that it would be unimaginable to him to give up despite whatever dangers he might face.. You know? Ask your questions. The gift was an eight-figure donation, according to spokesperson Simmi Allen, who said the oligarch was to be the second-largest donor to the institution. To tell somebody a man can become a woman, a woman can become a man, and a man can marry a man, they would have said, "You're crazy." On November 20, 2020, to mark the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, Ferencz will speak in a video message. All 22 defendants were convicted, with 14 sentenced to death. Produced by Shari Finkelstein and Nieves Zuberbhler. According to the United Nations article accompanying the video interview with Ferencz, his motto was Never give up. The website calls him still a tireless, and fearless, fighter for human rights and justice. Lesley Stahl: Ben? I hope that Ive done some good during that lifetime.. He said, Never has moral authority been squandered that fast. Having witnessed the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis during World War II, Mr. Ferencz has fought tirelessly to build the architecture of international justice around deterrence, prevention, and accountability for mass atrocities.. Ferencz learned quickly. Isnt it time to stop pretending theres anything benevolent about men whose fortunes are enabling one of the worst humanitarian disasters to hit Europe since World War II? Thanks to Ferencz'sinvestigations, the prosecutors in the Nuremberg Trials, which opened on November 20, 1945, had sufficient evidence and documentation to prove the Nazis' crimes. Before his health deteriorated, he reflected on his extraordinary life in a 45-minute interview with NBC News. In their hands lay overwhelming evidence of Nazi genocide by German doctors, lawyers, judges, generals, industrialists, and others who played leading roles in organizing or perpetrating Nazi brutalities, says his bio. Einsatzgruppen D was the unit of Ferencz's lead defendant Otto Ohlendorf. Just as Hitler used Krupp to soften his image among Germanys elites, Putin has dispatched his oligarchs to be his cultural emissaries, buying influence in our top-tier political, cultural and social institutions and desensitizing us to his ultimate goalsundermining Western democracy and numbing us to his crimes against humanity. Since the agreement was finalized, roughly $90 billion has been distributed to Holocaust survivors, according to the Claims Conference. Also learn about how he is rich at the age of 49 years old? Memories of the horrifying scenes he witnessed during this period left a permanent impression on Mr. Ferencz and inform his ongoing desire to see a world in which those responsible for atrocity crimes are held to account. Ferencz wanted to extend a favor. Their job had been to follow the German army as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and kill Communists, Gypsies and especially Jews. Benjamin Ferencz: That was their assignment, come in behind the troop, round up the Jews, kill 'em all. Germanys business elites met with Hitler before the March 1933 election, intoxicated by his vow to eradicate trade unions and communists (code for Jews). Ferencz said it took immense effort to keep his emotions in check. Watching Ben Ferencz during his daily swim, his gym workout and his morning push-up regimen is to realize he isn't just the sunniest man we've ever met -- he may also be the fittest. The story of the Holocaust isnt of great suffering and mass extermination, the late survivor Kitia Altman once told me as she tried to explain the mechanisms of the Nazi slave labor enterprise that imprisoned her and my own mother. I knew that what I was seeing was horror, he said. It was his first case, his website says. Discovery Company. Any institution, regardless of its area of focus, should refrain from taking Russian oligarchic money, Michel said. Ferencz studied crime prevention at the City College of New York, and his criminal law exam result won him a scholarship to Harvard Law School. There are many lessons to learn from the Holocaust, but one that resonates is the great evil caused by unchecked political power coupled with outsize economic wealth. Or as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskyy tweeted the day Russian missiles rained down on Babin Yarthe ravine where nearly 34,000 Jews were massacred over the course of two days during the Holocaust and whose oligarch-funded memorial was left miraculously unscathedwhy say never again while enabling 80-year old history to repeat itself? Death was their tool and life their toy. Lesley Stahl: So they went right in after the troops? At that time, he was not familiar with using a typewriter, and he couldn't fire a weapon. "He is not only doing it, but he is passionate about it.". Its name, Organization Schmelt, sounds more like a type of herring than the SS Oberfuhrer and former Gestapo head from Wroclaw, Poland, after whom it was named. One thing that people dont realize is how incredibly dangerous it was for these people, said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, an organization created to negotiate the agreements and later handle the dispersal of the money. A Warner Bros. I get that this is a hard time for cultural institutions like Yad Vashem, whose public funding has weathered two years of a global pandemic at a time of surging anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and far-right extremist violence. They're not real. Exhibit 111: "In the last 10 weeks, we have liquidated around 55,000 Jews." You want them to pay? After securingall possible evidence at one camp, they would drive directly to the next. His earliest memories are of his small basement apartment in a Manhattan district appropriately referred to as Hells Kitchen. Even at an early age, he felt a deep yearning for universal friendship and worldpeace., He went to college at Harvard Law School, graduating in 1943, according to his bio. Benjamin Ferencz: He gave me a bunch of binders, four binders. WebStephen Levitt. After he graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in the army. Ferencz eventually moved his wife and four children to the U.S. and set up a law practice in New York focused on civil rights and civil liberties. He didn't deny the killings -- he had the gall to claim they were done in self-defense. Lawyer And Pacifist Liberator. $45.00 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4766-0363-6. Benjamin Ferencz was just 27 when he successfully prosecuted 22 defendants for war crimes. But they were real. Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, found itself somewhat flat-footed by the news. He recalls in his writingshow at the trial's start, the rows were packed with people, but as the trial progressed, the seats emptied out asthe Germans failed to keep upinterest. Rep. Lois Frankel introduced a bill to honor the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremburg Trials, Ben Ferencz, 102, of Delray Beach. The German government ultimately agreed to compensate Holocaust victims around the world. Your effort and contribution in providing this feedback is much Get notification with the latest net worth updates for free. At the end of 1945, Mr. Ferencz was honorably discharged from the US Army with the rank of Sergeant of Infantry and returned to New York where he prepared to practice law. WebWorld Music Singer net worth; 21 richest; Pop Singer net worth; CA net worth; 32 richest; 1996 births; 26 richest; richest; Spain net worth; 1979 births; 22 richest; 25 richest; 20th Mr. Ferencz speaks at an event for the launch of the Ferencz International Justice Initiative. If everyone thought the way we do it would be a more humane and peaceful world, he wrote, according to a copy of the email shared with NBC News. He has been a strong proponent of the International Criminal Court, of reaching international consensus around a definition of the crime of aggression, and of other mechanisms to hold high-level perpetrators to account for mass atrocities. And I also learned that if we did not devote ourselves to developing effective world law, the same cruel mentality that made the Holocaust possible might one day destroy the entire human race. Ben Ferencz. Soon thereafter, the US Government recruited Mr. Ferencz to join the team working on the Nurember tribunals, a novel independent court established to try top-ranking Nazi officials for crimes perpetrated during the Holocaust. Lesley Stahl: They're making them run to their own death? Benjamin Ferencz: No. Despite his critical role for the U.S. forces, Ben Ferencz was actually born in Transylvania. Benjamin Ferencz: He's not a savage. All of these oligarchs made their wealth through either political connections to the Kremlin, links to organized crime, or both. For him, it was about justice. 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl and Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz, SOLA: Daring to educate Afghanistan's girls, Sanna Marin: Finland's 37-year-old prime minister, Kherson, Ukraine, withstands constant Russian attacks after occupation ends, IMF head Kristalina Georgieva on the 2023 global economy. His job duties also consisted of unceremoniously cleaning toilets and scrubbing pots and floors. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Ferencz was also involved in pushing the Germans to agree to maintain cemeteries where Holocaust victims were buried. He stopped checking his emails. He went on to campaign for the establishment of international law, including the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and to ensure restitution and rehabilitation for the victims of Nazi war crimes, the UN says. Its a well-known playbook, Michel argued, citing a litany of Russian oligarchs who have sought to whitewash their dirty deeds through philanthropy, turning our most vaunted cultural institutions into reputation laundering factories that attract the same sketchy agents who have already poured their ill-gotten funds into American hedge funds, real estate, and shell companies, according to a 2020 report by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. Ben Ferencz has led an extraordinary life. Even pro-democracy think tanks like the Atlantic Council and the Council of Foreign Relations have taken oligarchs cash. Its a form of reparations without any admission of guilt or wrongdoing, and thats something Ferencz, who helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, establishing every human beings inalienable rights to freedom, dignity and equality, and negotiated the terms of restitution to victims of Nazi slave labor after the Holocaust, would know. Benjamin B. Ferencz, 27, presents his case in Nuremberg in 1947 at what the Associated Press called the biggest murder trial in history.. Benjamin Ferencz: He was not ashamed of that. Along with his sanctioned cronies Avn and German Kahn (chairman of Russias third-largest oil company, TNK Oil), Fridman announced last week that the three are donating $10 million to Ukraines Jewish community. The Allied invasion had begun and with it the end of Nazi rule. The Holocaust Memorial Museum says on its website that Ferencz has published books on the top of world peace, listing the following publications: Defining International Aggression: The Search for World Peace (Oceana Publications, 1975), An International Criminal Court: A Step Toward World Peace (Oceana Publications, 1980), Enforcing International Law: A Way to World Peace (Oceana Publications, 1983), A Common Sense Guide to World Peace (Oceana Publications, 1985), PlanetHood by Ben Ferencz and Ken Keyes (Mass Market Paperback, 1988).. Lesley Stahl: Had you prosecuted trials before? In 2017, Ben Ferencz partnered with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museums Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide to establish the Ferencz International Justice Initiative to continue his legacy of demanding justice for victims of atrocity crimes. Putin is having a one-day trip to Nizhny Novgorod region. He also lobbied for the creation of the International Criminal Court and was selected, at age 91, to deliver a closing statement in the courts first case, the prosecution of the Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. 1894 shipwreck found in Lake Huron, confirming "powerful, tragic story", Garland to face Congress amid ongoing special counsel investigations, FBI chief says agency feels pandemic likely started with Chinese lab leak. At theInternational Military Tribunal (IMT)andSubsequent Nuremberg Proceedings, documentation ofevidenceand prosecution of crimes were intertwined. Camps like Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau are vividly imprinted in my minds eye. This was the basis he and his team used to issuearrest warrants. Ferencz traveled to multiple concentration camps Buchenwald, Mauthause, Flossenburg, Ebensee often within days and sometimes hours of their liberation. The USinvestigative team was headquartered in the war-ravaged capital of Berlin. Benjamin Ferencz: Well, this is typical operation. In Berlin, Mr. Ferencz gathered sufficient evidence to prosecute individuals in connection with the so-called roving task forces or Einsatzgruppen that were established to murder Jews, European Romas, communist functionaries, and Soviet intellectuals. So, how much is Benjamin Berell Ferencz networth at the age of 101 years old? He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the 12 Subsequent Nuremberg Trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany. Benjamin Ferencz: They were 3,000 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. "Without Ferencz, this spectacular trial might not have taken place," Axel Fischer, historian and expert on the Nuremberg trials, told DW. 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