Benjamin Ferenc was 27 when he served as prosecutor at Nuremberg. (Representative)
Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials in Germany who brought Nazi war criminals to justice after World War II and a longtime campaigner for international criminal law, died on Friday at the age of 103. NBC News reported, Referring to his son.
Ferenc, a Harvard-educated lawyer, gained the firm confidence of many German officers who led roving death squads during the war. The circumstances of his death were not immediately disclosed. The New York Times reported that Ferencz died at an assisted living facility in Boynton Beach, Florida.
He was just 27 when he served as a prosecutor at Nuremberg in 1947, where Nazi defendants including Hermann Göring faced a series of trials for crimes against humanity, including the genocide known as the Holocaust. Also included were six million Jewish people and millions of others. systematically killed.
Firenze advocated for decades for the creation of an international criminal court, a goal realized with the establishment of an international tribunal that sits in The Hague, Netherlands. Ferenc was also an important donor to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum established in Washington.
“Today the world has lost a leader in the pursuit of justice for victims of genocide and related crimes. We mourn the death of Ben Ferencz – the last Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor. At the age of 27, with no prior trial experience K, they secured guilty verdicts against 22 Nazis,” the US Holocaust Museum said in a post on Twitter.
At Nuremberg, Ferenc became the lead prosecutor for the United States in the trial of 22 officers who led the mobile paramilitary assassination squads known as the Einsatzgruppen, which were part of the infamous Nazi SS. The squads carried out mass executions targeting Jews, Gypsies and others – mainly civilians – during the war in German-occupied Europe and were responsible for more than one million deaths.
“It is with sadness and with hope that we here disclose the deliberate slaughter of over a million innocent and defenseless men, women and children,” Ferencz said in his opening statement at the trial.
“It was the sad fulfillment of a program of intolerance and arrogance. Retribution is not our goal, nor do we seek just a just retribution. We ask this Court to affirm that international punitive action, regardless of And have the right to live with dignity. Race or creed. The case we present is humanity’s plea for law,” Ferencz said.
Ferenc told the court that the accused officers systematically carried out long-range plans to “condemn ethnic, national, political and religious groups in the Nazi mind”.
“Genocide – the extermination of entire categories of human beings – was a major instrument of Nazi doctrine,” said Ferenc.
All the defendants were convicted and 13 were sentenced to death. This was Ferenc’s first career case.
Born in Transylvania, Romania, on March 11, 1920, Ferenc was 10 months old when his family moved to the United States, where they grew up poor in New York City’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1943, he joined the US Army and fought in Europe before joining the newly formed War Crimes Section of the US Army.
In Nazi death camps such as Buchenwald after their liberation by Allied forces, he seized documents and recorded evidence, surveying scenes of human suffering that included piles of dismembered corpses and cremation grounds where countless bodies were burned.
[1945मेंयुद्धसमाप्तहोनेकेबादनूर्नबर्गमेंयुद्धअपराधपरीक्षणोंमेंअमेरिकीअभियोजनमेंशामिलहोनेकेलिएफेरेंज़कोभर्तीकियागयाथाएकऐसाशहरजहांनाजीनेतृत्वनेयुद्धसेपहलेविस्तृतप्रचाररैलियांकीथींजोयूएसजनरलटेलफोर्डटेलरकेअधीनथीं।परीक्षणउससमयविवादास्पदथेलेकिनअंतमेंअंतरराष्ट्रीयकानूनस्थापितकरनेऔरयुद्धअपराधियोंकोसम-हाथवालेपरीक्षणोंमेंजवाबदेहठहरानेकीदिशामेंएकमीलकेपत्थरकेरूपमेंस्वागतकियागया।
अमेरिकी बार एसोसिएशन के साथ 2018 के एक साक्षात्कार में फेरेंज़ ने कहा, “इसके बारे में सबसे महत्वपूर्ण बात यह थी कि इसने हमें दिया और इसने मुझे बड़े पैमाने पर हत्यारों की मानसिकता के बारे में जानकारी दी।”
“उन्होंने एक लाख से अधिक लोगों की हत्या की थी, जिनमें सैकड़ों हजारों बच्चे शामिल थे, और मैं यह समझना चाहता था कि यह कैसे है कि शिक्षित लोग – उनमें से कई के पास पीएचडी थी या वे जर्मन सेना में जनरल थे – न केवल बर्दाश्त कर सकते थे बल्कि नेतृत्व करें और इस तरह के भयानक अपराध करें।”
नूर्नबर्ग परीक्षणों के बाद, फेरेंज़ ने होलोकॉस्ट पीड़ितों और बचे लोगों के लिए मुआवजे को सुरक्षित करने के लिए काम किया। फेरेंज़ ने बाद में एक अंतरराष्ट्रीय आपराधिक अदालत के निर्माण की वकालत की। 1998 में, 120 देशों ने अंतर्राष्ट्रीय अपराध न्यायालय की स्थापना के लिए रोम में एक क़ानून को अपनाया, जो 2002 में लागू हुआ।
91 साल की उम्र में, उन्होंने युद्ध अपराधों के लिए दोषी ठहराए गए कांगो के सरदार थॉमस लुबांगा डायिलो के अभियोजन पक्ष में समापन बयान देकर अदालत के समक्ष पहले मामले में भाग लिया।
वर्षों से, फेरेंज़ वियतनाम युद्ध के दौरान सहित अपने ही देश द्वारा किए गए कार्यों के लिए महत्वपूर्ण था। जनवरी 2020 में, उन्होंने न्यूयॉर्क टाइम्स में एक राय लिखी, जिसमें ड्रोन हमले में एक वरिष्ठ ईरानी सैन्य नेता की अमेरिकी हत्या को “अनैतिक कार्रवाई” और “राष्ट्रीय और अंतर्राष्ट्रीय कानून का स्पष्ट उल्लंघन” कहा गया।
उन्होंने 2018 में बार एसोसिएशन से कहा, “जिस कारण से मैंने युद्ध को रोकने के लिए अपना अधिकांश जीवन समर्पित करना जारी रखा है, वह मेरी जागरूकता है कि अगला युद्ध बच्चों के खेल जैसा होगा।” “… ‘कानून, युद्ध नहीं ‘ मेरा नारा और मेरी आशा बनी हुई है।
(हेडलाइन को छोड़कर, यह कहानी NDTV के कर्मचारियों द्वारा संपादित नहीं की गई है और एक सिंडिकेट फीड से प्रकाशित हुई है।)