After his studies, he joined the
US Army. His time as a soldier in the army began with a job as a typist in
Camp Davis in
North Carolina; at that time, he did not know how to use a typewriter or fire a weapon. His job duties also included cleaning toilets and scrubbing pots and floors. In 1944, he served in the 115th AAA Gun Battalion, an
anti-aircraft artillery unit. In 1945, he was transferred to the headquarters of General
George S. Patton's
Third Army, where he was assigned to a team tasked with setting up a
war crimes branch and collecting evidence for such crimes. Near the Tempelhof in a building belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, in the spring of 1946, Ferencz found reports that described in detail, day by day, the Einsatzgruppen's killing of at least one million people from June 1941. Ferencz then flew to Nuremberg and demanded that the men be put on trial. Taylor hesitated, since there was a shortage of people and money. However, after Ferencz offered to personally handle the case, he agreed to have a trial held. all were convicted; 13 of them received death sentences, of which four were eventually carried out. Apart from
East Germany, they were the last executions performed on German soil, and in the Federal Republic. In a 2005 interview for
The Washington Post, he revealed some of his activities during his period in Germany by way of showing how different military legal norms were at the time: Ferencz stayed in Germany after the
Nuremberg trials, together with his wife Gertrude, on March 31, 1946. and the first
German Restitution Law in 1953. While pursuing claims of Jewish forced laborers against the Flick concern (the subject of the
Flick trial), Ferencz observed the "interesting phenomenon of history and psychology that very frequently the criminal comes to see himself as the victim".
Role in forming the International Criminal Court Experiences just after World War II left a defining impression on Ferencz. Ferencz repeatedly argued against this procedure and suggested that the US join the ICC without reservations, as it was a long-established rule of law that "law must apply equally to everyone", also in an international context. In 2013, Ferencz again said that the "use of armed force to obtain a political goal should be condemned as an international and a national crime". Ferencz wrote in 2018, in a preface to a book on the future of international justice, that "war-making itself is the supreme international crime against humanity and that it should be deterred by punishment universally, wherever and whenever offenders are apprehended".
Later years In 2009, Ferencz was awarded the
Erasmus Prize, together with
Antonio Cassese; the award is given to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science. On May 3, 2011, two days after the
death of Osama bin Laden was reported,
The New York Times published a Ferencz letter that argued that "illegal and unwarranted execution—even of suspected mass murderers—undermines democracy". Also that year he presented a closing statement in the trial of
Thomas Lubanga Dyilo in Uganda. On March 16, 2012, in another letter to the editor of
The New York Times, Ferencz hailed the International Criminal Court's conviction of
Thomas Lubanga as "a milestone in the evolution of international criminal law". In April 2017, the municipality of
The Hague announced the naming of the footpath next to the
Peace Palace the Benjamin Ferenczpad ("Benjamin Ferencz Path"), calling him "one of the figureheads of international justice". The city's Deputy Mayor Saskia Bruines (International Affairs) traveled to Washington D.C. to symbolically present the street sign to Ferencz. In 2018, Ferencz was the subject of a documentary on his life,
Prosecuting Evil, by director
Barry Avrich, which was made available on
Netflix. In the same year, Ferencz was interviewed for the 2018
Michael Moore documentary
Fahrenheit 11/9. On June 20, 2019, artist and sculptor
Yaacov Heller honored Ferencz—presenting him with a bust he created—commemorating his extraordinary life dedicated to genocide prevention. On January 16, 2020,
The New York Times printed Ferencz's letter denouncing the assassination of the Iranian general
Qasem Soleimani, unnamed in the letter, as an "immoral action [and] a clear violation of national and international law". He became a centenarian two months later. Six months later on September 7, the documentary
Two Heads Are Better Than One: Making of the Ben Ferencz Bust, starring Ferencz and sculptor Yaacov Heller, had a world premiere, produced by Eric Kline Productions and directed by Eric Kline. On June 22, 2021, he became the first recipient of the Pahl Peace Prize in
Liechtenstein. In January 2022, Ferencz appeared as an interviewee in the German documentary
Ganz normale Männer - Der "vergessene Holocaust" which was based on the book
Ordinary Men - Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by
Christopher Browning. An English language version of the documentary was released by Netflix in September 2023 as
Ordinary Men - The "Forgotten Holocaust". In March 2022, an audio clip of Ferencz was played during the
eleventh emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly and he later gave an interview to
BBC Radio 4's
The World Tonight on the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. He said that
Vladimir Putin should be "behind bars" for his war crimes, and that he was "heartbroken" over atrocities in Ukraine. On April 7, 2022, Florida Governor
Ron DeSantis awarded Ferencz the Governor's Medal of Freedom at a ceremony held at
Florida Atlantic University. In September 2022, Ferencz appeared in the
Ken Burns documentary
The U.S. and the Holocaust. In December 2022, Ferencz was awarded the
Congressional Gold Medal. In January 2023, Ferencz appeared in the David Wilkinson documentary
Getting Away with Murder(s). In March 2023, in one of his last public appearances, Ferencz presented a video clip of welcome to participants at
The Nuremberg Principles: The Contemporary Challenges Conference, an event sponsored by the
Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the
Catholic University of America. ==Personal life==