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