:00:10. > :00:17.Welcome to HARDtalk with me, Zeinab Badawi, here in Florida, where my
:00:18. > :00:22.guest is 98-year-old Ben Ferencz. He is the last surviving prosecutor at
:00:23. > :00:26.the Nuremberg Nazi trials. He also helped liberate the death camps of
:00:27. > :00:31.Europe while serving in the U.S. Army. So does he believe that the
:00:32. > :00:35.Nuremberg trials have made genocide and other crimes against humanity
:00:36. > :01:01.less likely to be committed in the world today?
:01:02. > :01:08.Ben Ferencz, welcome to HARDtalk. You were born in 1920 in
:01:09. > :01:12.Transylvania in Central Europe. You moved to the United States with your
:01:13. > :01:19.family when you were a little baby. You really epitomise the American
:01:20. > :01:23.dream, a kind of rags to riches story, because it was discovered
:01:24. > :01:28.that you were highly intelligent and you were put on a fast track to
:01:29. > :01:33.Harvard Law School. We arrived in America, my parents were young
:01:34. > :01:43.immigrants fleeing persecution and poverty. No money, no skills, no
:01:44. > :01:48.language. And lucky to have some friendly New Yorker offer us, my
:01:49. > :01:52.father, who had been trained as a shoemaker, but they didn't need any
:01:53. > :01:56.boots made in New York, there were no cobblers. But the owner of a
:01:57. > :02:01.building offered us the opportunity to sleep in the cellar and my father
:02:02. > :02:07.would be the janitor. That's where we began, and that's where my memory
:02:08. > :02:10.begins, in a high crime density area known for good reason as Hells
:02:11. > :02:15.kitchen. There was a lot of crying, is that what excited your interest
:02:16. > :02:20.in law and pursuing a career in law? It excited my interest in not being
:02:21. > :02:24.on the criminal side, put it that way, there was crying all around. I
:02:25. > :02:29.had made up my mind early that I didn't want to be a cowboy and I
:02:30. > :02:33.didn't want to be a fireman and I didn't want to be a crook either, so
:02:34. > :02:36.that pretty much left me to go to law and eyes focused on it ever
:02:37. > :02:42.since. After you graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943, you join
:02:43. > :02:48.the US military and joined a battalion preparing for the invasion
:02:49. > :02:52.of France. What are your key recollections of that time? I
:02:53. > :02:56.enlisted whenever I could get into the army, I was a private, the
:02:57. > :03:02.lowest rank you could get, assigned to be in the artillery battalion.
:03:03. > :03:11.And in that capacity we landed on the beaches of Normandy. France was
:03:12. > :03:15.occupied by the Germans. The only way to move the war forward and to
:03:16. > :03:23.get rid of the war was to defeat the Germans. I sailed from lands end at
:03:24. > :03:27.the tip of England across to Omaha beach, which was still... Had been
:03:28. > :03:33.cleared by the time I got there a bit. But there were many soldiers in
:03:34. > :03:41.American uniform still lying in the sea face down. There were many
:03:42. > :03:48.armoured vehicles still in the water and we had to push on from there
:03:49. > :03:53.into France and defeat them. There was heavy artillery all the way.
:03:54. > :03:59.Many battles all the way. And it was only when we got into the German
:04:00. > :04:06.occupied, and Germany itself, that we began to encounter a possible war
:04:07. > :04:10.crimes. As Nazi atrocities were uncovered you were transferred to a
:04:11. > :04:15.newly created war crimes branch of the Army to gather evidence of Nazi
:04:16. > :04:22.brutality and apprehend the war criminals. You entered the death
:04:23. > :04:31.camps, like two Kleinveldt, and you described how you sourcing from
:04:32. > :04:37.hell. Described to us what you saw. -- Buchenwald. I can describe it
:04:38. > :04:41.vividly because the recollection is clear in my mind but at the same
:04:42. > :04:45.time you can't understand what it is like because the rational human mind
:04:46. > :04:51.can't quite grasp it. Coming into Buchenwald for example, dead bodies
:04:52. > :04:57.lying all on the ground, you can't tell if they're dead or alive.
:04:58. > :05:04.Skeletons dressed in just rags which had at one time been part of their
:05:05. > :05:10.work uniform with a triangle indicating they were dues,
:05:11. > :05:16.homosexuals, communists or whatever. -- dues. Everyone is running in
:05:17. > :05:21.different directions. The SS is running out. A scene like the pile
:05:22. > :05:29.of rubbish the size of this room and in it inmates grovelling like rats
:05:30. > :05:34.for a bite of food and picking out garbage and sticking it into their
:05:35. > :05:40.mouths. The smell of foul flesh burning. Crematoria, stacks of human
:05:41. > :05:45.bodies looking like bones stacked one on top of the other while they
:05:46. > :05:52.are shovelled into a crematorium and turned into ash and the fact is used
:05:53. > :05:56.for making soap and their ashes are used as fertiliser. The SS is
:05:57. > :06:01.running out, occasionally getting caught and beaten to death by the
:06:02. > :06:05.inmates, they were still not able to do anything about it. I wrote
:06:06. > :06:12.somewhere that I had peered into hell. I think hell would be paradise
:06:13. > :06:16.compared to what I saw. Are the memories of what you saw still very
:06:17. > :06:19.vivid for you? Yes, I don't like to talk about them much because I have
:06:20. > :06:30.difficulty controlling my own emotions. In 1945 you left the U.S.
:06:31. > :06:33.Army, returned to New York and prepared to practise law but shortly
:06:34. > :06:37.after that you were recruited for the New York Nuremberg trials, the
:06:38. > :06:41.international prosecution against the likes of Hermann Goering and
:06:42. > :06:45.other leading Nazis were already in progress. What was your reaction
:06:46. > :06:53.when you were asked to be part of that process? When the war was over,
:06:54. > :06:58.I came back along with 10 million other soldiers looking for a job. I
:06:59. > :07:03.graduated from the Harvard Law School and I passed the bar but I
:07:04. > :07:11.had no clients of any kind. I was pleased to get a telegram from the
:07:12. > :07:17.Pentagon invitingly to come to the Pentagon and they wanted to talk to
:07:18. > :07:22.me. I arrived and they said dear, Sir, they had never called me serve
:07:23. > :07:27.before, they wanted me to go back to Germany to help with warcrimes
:07:28. > :07:36.trials. I had done that during the war days. The last several months in
:07:37. > :07:40.the war as we occupied portions of Germany and France that had been
:07:41. > :07:44.occupied, we ran into examples of crimes of all kinds, the most
:07:45. > :07:48.obvious ones, what we called the allied flyer cases, very little is
:07:49. > :07:53.known about that. Fliers were being shot down in German held territory
:07:54. > :07:58.and they were almost invariably the can to death by the German mob. It
:07:59. > :08:04.was probably our first war crimes cases -- part of. I had that kind of
:08:05. > :08:08.experience with me as when I left the army. I took that back to
:08:09. > :08:15.Germany when I agreed without hesitation to go back to Germany and
:08:16. > :08:19.help with trials which would follow the international military tribunal.
:08:20. > :08:25.Why did you hesitate? It's a horrible experience for anyone.
:08:26. > :08:28.Germany was associated in my mind with atrocity and terrible crimes, I
:08:29. > :08:37.didn't want to go back to Germany. This is horror glorified. Nothing
:08:38. > :08:43.heroic about it at all. It shows how human beings can be debased in times
:08:44. > :08:46.of war. So you did go back to Germany and you've scoured Nazi
:08:47. > :08:57.officers and archives and trying to find evidence of the Nazi atrocities
:08:58. > :09:02.-- you scoured Nazi offices. It was quite all pervasive, wasn't it? The
:09:03. > :09:05.people that were involved in the atrocities. The United States in
:09:06. > :09:13.particular felt The International Monetary Fund criminal trial against
:09:14. > :09:17.Hermann Goring was a camera shot of a small sampling and to really
:09:18. > :09:23.understand how a civilised country like Germany could commit and
:09:24. > :09:26.tolerate the kind of atrocities that were committed, you should
:09:27. > :09:30.understand the position that doctors who perform medical experiments, the
:09:31. > :09:35.lawyers and judges that perverted the law, the SS officers that did
:09:36. > :09:42.the killings, the industrialists that were working people to death,
:09:43. > :09:46.all of these were specific groups. So the United States said let us
:09:47. > :09:51.take a sampling from the drop these groups to help us understand it. So
:09:52. > :09:59.I went to Berlin with about 50 people, scoured all of the archives,
:10:00. > :10:02.hours of Nazi archives, to gather the evidence to cover the broad
:10:03. > :10:08.spectrum of German society which basically was responsible for the
:10:09. > :10:12.crimes. In previous interviews you described how ingathering witness
:10:13. > :10:15.testimonies you did resort to duress, for instance lining up
:10:16. > :10:22.villagers and threatening to shoot them if they lied. I'm in, such
:10:23. > :10:27.methods now would amount to witness harassment of the most extreme order
:10:28. > :10:31.-- I mean. Perhaps it would. But it's only because the people that
:10:32. > :10:36.make the allegations don't understand what war is about. If I
:10:37. > :10:41.bring a room of 20 people and this is a natural case, and line them up,
:10:42. > :10:45.and say I want you to all right out exactly what happened, what your
:10:46. > :10:49.role was, what others did, anybody who lies will be shot. How can you
:10:50. > :10:53.do a thing like that, you're threatening them with torture! What
:10:54. > :10:58.am I going to tell them? Anybody who lies will get a paddy cake tonight?
:10:59. > :11:04.What do you want me to tell them, be honest, please confess you're a
:11:05. > :11:10.murderer, please, I don't want to threaten new, what are you talking
:11:11. > :11:14.about? There's a war going on, they work killing people. -- pretty new.
:11:15. > :11:19.What am I going to do? I didn't shoot them but I threaten them, that
:11:20. > :11:23.was the only weapon I had in -- and if that makes me a torturer then
:11:24. > :11:31.call me a torturer -- threaten new. You became the chief officer at --
:11:32. > :11:34.threaten you. There was a case described by the associated press
:11:35. > :11:40.news agency as the biggest murder trial in history. 22 Nazi war
:11:41. > :11:46.criminals who were part of these death squads, shooting more than 1
:11:47. > :11:52.million people, most of them civilians. It was quite a
:11:53. > :11:57.responsibility for a young man, you were only 27, to take. And in fact,
:11:58. > :12:04.just before you talk to me about that, I just want to show you, this
:12:05. > :12:12.is you at the Nuremberg Trials. The leading judge, these are the
:12:13. > :12:17.defendants. 22 defendants. Each one charged with mass murder. All of
:12:18. > :12:20.them pleaded not guilty. No one ever showed any sign of Rob Moore is
:12:21. > :12:27.whatsoever. I remember very well what I said. -- no sign of remorse.
:12:28. > :12:30.It is with sorrow and with hope that we here disclose the murder of over
:12:31. > :12:36.1 million innocent and defenceless men, women and children.
:12:37. > :12:44.Vengeance is not our goal. Nor do we seek merely just retribution. We ask
:12:45. > :12:51.this taught to affirm by international penal action man's
:12:52. > :12:59.right to live in peace and dignity, regardless of his race or creed. The
:13:00. > :13:05.case we present is a plea of humanity to law, that these men who
:13:06. > :13:10.wrote the darkest page in human history, people were murdered
:13:11. > :13:14.because they didn't share the race and colour and the ideology of their
:13:15. > :13:18.executioners. I thought it was horrible then, I think it is
:13:19. > :13:23.horrible now. And I appealed for the rule of law, which would in future
:13:24. > :13:27.protect people from that type of atrocity. When you look at that
:13:28. > :13:34.picture of view, though, I mean, 27 years of age, chief prosecutor in
:13:35. > :13:38.the Nuremberg process. That was an accident, that I was the chief
:13:39. > :13:43.prosecutor. One of my research is, I had about 50 of them in Berlin, came
:13:44. > :13:46.across the daily reports from the front of the special extermination
:13:47. > :13:51.squads whose job it was to kill without pity or remorse, every
:13:52. > :13:55.single Jewish man, woman and child they could lay their hands on,
:13:56. > :14:00.including the same for Gypsies and any other perceived or suspected
:14:01. > :14:04.opponent of the Reich. No such process had been planned. I flew
:14:05. > :14:08.down to your boat to talk to the general who was the judge, and he
:14:09. > :14:11.said we can't put on this trail now, because of all the lawyers are
:14:12. > :14:15.already assigned, the trials in profits, the Pentagon has an
:14:16. > :14:21.approved it, I doubt doubt if they will approve it, and I haven't may
:14:22. > :14:25.hand evidence of mass murder on a scale never before seen in human
:14:26. > :14:29.history. You can't let these guys go. He said can you do it in
:14:30. > :14:34.addition to your other work? I said Shaw, and I did, and I rested my
:14:35. > :14:37.case in two days. You said you wanted to prosecute the offices. You
:14:38. > :14:40.won't as interested in the foot soldiers, you wanted to get the
:14:41. > :14:46.educated officers among them. It is very hard for the public today to
:14:47. > :14:54.understand. The special extermination squad, Einsatzgruppen,
:14:55. > :14:59.the German word means action groups. They were 3000 man. I selected at
:15:00. > :15:03.least 3000. All of whom were complicit in mass murder. I selected
:15:04. > :15:07.those based on several factors. First of all, we had to have them in
:15:08. > :15:11.captivity. If you have got the evidence and you haven't got the
:15:12. > :15:15.prisoner, you have got nothing. I want a list of everybody who was a
:15:16. > :15:19.Einsatzgruppen member from all of our intelligence services, sent down
:15:20. > :15:23.immediately to neuron boat. I went over the list, I picked those of the
:15:24. > :15:27.highest rank and then checked out their background, from the Nazi
:15:28. > :15:32.party records which we captured in Berlin. Those who had Doctor
:15:33. > :15:39.degrees, and had... Or generals, they got priorities. I picked out 21
:15:40. > :15:44.or 28, it was we only had 22 seats in the dock. Is that absurd? Of
:15:45. > :15:48.course it is absurd. There were only 22 seats in the dock for the Hermann
:15:49. > :15:53.Goering trial, so we have a selection. Of the 22 who you tried
:15:54. > :15:58.in a Einsatzgruppen case, about a dozen were given death sentences.
:15:59. > :16:02.Four were actually executed, the others remained in prison, but only
:16:03. > :16:06.for a few years, until an agreement, a deal, was made between the
:16:07. > :16:14.American and German governments, and they were released. So it wasn't...
:16:15. > :16:18.It wasn't that formalistic. The political atmosphere had changed.
:16:19. > :16:24.General George Patton, who was my commander, made a speech in London
:16:25. > :16:28.to a group before the war was over in which he said we have fought the
:16:29. > :16:31.wrong enemy. We should not have been fighting the Germans, we should have
:16:32. > :16:34.been fighting the Russians. While the war was on, American general!
:16:35. > :16:39.Americans were still being killed in battle and the Russians were being
:16:40. > :16:43.slaughtered. Indicated the change of political scene in the United
:16:44. > :16:48.States. A Conservative group was saying what we are getting involved
:16:49. > :16:51.in this? This action against the Germans, we need the Germans. The
:16:52. > :16:55.British were particular keen about not executing some of the German
:16:56. > :17:02.generals that the British Army wanted. So the political pressure
:17:03. > :17:06.was such, together with some feeling of Amnesty, for humanitarian
:17:07. > :17:13.considerations. They stopped the trials, they released the people who
:17:14. > :17:16.were there, and then began to rehire people like Werner von Brown, who
:17:17. > :17:23.knew about rockets, and some of his deputies came to the United States,
:17:24. > :17:28.as they had the new rocket science. So when the trial that you presided
:17:29. > :17:35.over at Nuremberg was hailed as a success, as some did at the time, it
:17:36. > :17:39.can't really be described as that some of those who were found guilty
:17:40. > :17:47.were subsequently released. I was of course disappointed, but I never
:17:48. > :17:52.anticipated or tried to do justice in the broad sense of holding every
:17:53. > :17:56.criminal accountable. It would have been a practical impossibility. So I
:17:57. > :18:00.was careful in the selection of having the men in custody, having
:18:01. > :18:03.high rank, having good education, having absolute proof beyond any
:18:04. > :18:08.doubt of his guilt. I had his report, top-secret, to his
:18:09. > :18:11.commanders, saying how many people executed. They were not quite
:18:12. > :18:15.accurate. They exaggerated the body count. So more, how many more they
:18:16. > :18:26.killed? Then they said it was against our will, superior orders.
:18:27. > :18:32.Loonie. Was a? They were ordered to kill all the Jews, but they wanted
:18:33. > :18:36.to brag. They said how many they killed. You said the lessons, if we
:18:37. > :18:40.do not devote ourselves to developing effective world more, the
:18:41. > :18:45.same inhumanity which made the Holocaust possible might one day
:18:46. > :18:49.destroy the entire human race. So today, so many years later, here you
:18:50. > :18:52.are in your 90th year, and you look around you at the world, the
:18:53. > :18:57.conflicts that have happened in recent times, what is your
:18:58. > :19:01.assessment? Have we made progress? We have made progress. We have not
:19:02. > :19:06.learned the lesson of Nuremberg. We have made progress. I will come back
:19:07. > :19:12.to it. But first let me emphasise the fact, I learnt that war makes
:19:13. > :19:17.murderers. Mass murderers, part of otherwise decent people. And it
:19:18. > :19:21.applies to all wars and all nationalities, and I have seen it.
:19:22. > :19:26.And all the wars, these are not wild animals or out for blood, these are
:19:27. > :19:31.patriots who are trying to do their duty to protect either their
:19:32. > :19:37.religion or their nationality or the economic security. These are the
:19:38. > :19:42.three major causes. We have not learned that you can't kill an
:19:43. > :19:46.ideology with a gun. We still go at it with the same stupid approach, of
:19:47. > :19:50.spending all of your assets on building weapons and more weapons to
:19:51. > :19:56.kill more people, and depriving people of the things they need to
:19:57. > :20:05.eliminate the fear is which they have in their life. The man who is
:20:06. > :20:08.desperate, who has no job, who has no money, if the money spent on
:20:09. > :20:12.weapons could be spent on eliminating the cause of his
:20:13. > :20:16.discontent, it is not going to risk his life and go out and kill people
:20:17. > :20:19.the way they do today. So you were very instrumental in the setting up
:20:20. > :20:25.of the International Criminal Court, which was established by the Rome
:20:26. > :20:34.Statute in 1998. Do you think that has really help -- helped prevent
:20:35. > :20:37.crimes against humanity, war crimes, do you think it has stopped his
:20:38. > :20:42.crimes being committed with impunity? It has helped, but not
:20:43. > :20:46.enough. Certainly the existence of laws prohibiting certain behaviour
:20:47. > :20:53.has some deterrent effect, what we have to bear in mind that, for
:20:54. > :20:57.centuries, we have glorified warmaking. Ever since David hit
:20:58. > :21:03.Goliath in the head with a rock, we have glorified the praise and
:21:04. > :21:06.watching, no politician appears without flags flying on both sides,
:21:07. > :21:11.and the ban is going and marching. And I was a soldier, and I know, and
:21:12. > :21:15.they gave me all the battle stars and they gave me all the decoration
:21:16. > :21:18.of war and all that stuff. We have to reverse those dozens of years,
:21:19. > :21:22.because the world has changed. We are not throwing rocks any more. We
:21:23. > :21:26.are going to kill everybody from cyberspace. We can cut off the
:21:27. > :21:30.electrical grid of any city on the planet. Are you all crazy? You are
:21:31. > :21:34.standing there watching it happen, the students don't have money to pay
:21:35. > :21:37.tuition, the refugees have no homes to go to, the old people are dying
:21:38. > :21:41.because they can't afford medical care, and you are pouring billions
:21:42. > :21:45.of dollars every day in the killing machines. What, in your long life
:21:46. > :21:51.and career, have you learned about the nature of evil and human beings'
:21:52. > :21:56.capacity to commit the most unspeakable, horrific acts against
:21:57. > :22:00.their fellow human beings? Well, I have learnt simply, it is very
:22:01. > :22:06.obvious, that people in very high places, people of good education and
:22:07. > :22:10.high rank are quite competent at becoming mass murderers against any
:22:11. > :22:13.group that they think threatens either their nationality or their
:22:14. > :22:18.religion or their economic circumstances. I have seen that.
:22:19. > :22:21.These are not crimes committed by devils with horns. These are
:22:22. > :22:28.committed by educated, well intentioned, patriotic people. But
:22:29. > :22:32.we have to change the hearts and minds of people, so that they
:22:33. > :22:41.recognise that it is not cowardice to be willing to compromise, and to
:22:42. > :22:44.be conciliatory and be compassionate when you are dealing with people who
:22:45. > :22:49.have other points of view. And I know that it takes courage not to be
:22:50. > :22:54.discouraged. But we have got to have that kind of courage, because it is
:22:55. > :22:59.a tough job, and it will take a long time, and we have to begin in the
:23:00. > :23:04.cradle. So this re-education of the human spirit and the human mind, on
:23:05. > :23:08.a worldwide basis, is the task before us. And we are doing it. Look
:23:09. > :23:16.at the among the patient, without the Borrett doormat limitations, --
:23:17. > :23:22.look at the Emancipation, without limitations, of the black man. Look
:23:23. > :23:26.at marriage, a man can marry a man, a man can become a woman. Our
:23:27. > :23:31.realities today, 25 years ago they said you are out of your mind. And I
:23:32. > :23:37.say don't give up. Law is always better than war, and that is my firm
:23:38. > :23:41.decision, no matter if you get a bad decision. Law is always better than
:23:42. > :23:45.war. Murder is terrible, and there are three ways of preventing it.
:23:46. > :23:50.One, never give up, two, never give up, three... And then I hear the
:23:51. > :24:02.echo from the audience... Never give up. Ben Ferencz, thank you very much
:24:03. > :24:07.for coming on HARDtalk. It has been a pleasure. I hope you all... Don't
:24:08. > :24:10.enjoy it, but think about it. Thank you.