Benjamin Berell Ferencz Congressional Gold Medal Act

Benjamin Ben Berell Ferencz was born on March 11, 1920, in Transylvania, now modern day Hungary.

In 1920, Ben and his family fled anti-Semitic persecution and emigrated to the United States. Ben grew up in New York City, and in 1940, was awarded a scholarship to Harvard Law School where he graduated with honors.

After the onset of World War II, Ben enlisted in the United States Army in 1943, and joined an anti-aircraft artillery battalion preparing for the invasion of France. As an enlisted man under General Patton, he fought in most of the major campaigns in Europe.

As Nazi atrocities were uncovered, Ben was transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch of the Army to gather evidence of war crimes that could be used in a court of law to prosecute persons responsible for these crimes. Ben documented the horrors perpetrated by Nazi Germany, visiting concentration camps as they were liberated.

At the end of 1945, Ben was honorably discharged from the United States Army with the rank of Sergeant of Infantry. He had been awarded 5 battle stars.

In 1946, the United States Government recruited Ben to join the team working on the Nuremberg tribunals, a novel independent court established to try top-ranking Nazi officials for crimes perpetrated during the course of the war, including those crimes we now call the Holocaust. Mr. Ferencz was sent to Berlin to oversee a team of 50 researchers investigating official Nazi records, which provided overwhelming evidence to implicate German doctors, lawyers, judges, generals, industrialists, and others in genocide.

By 1948, at age 27, Ben had secured enough evidence to prosecute 22 SS members of Nazi killing squads charged for the murder of over 1,000,0000 Jewish, Roma, Soviet, and other men, women, and children in shooting massacres in occupied Soviet territory. He 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. An additional 2 defendants were found guilty for membership in a criminal organization.

After the Nuremberg trials ended, Ben fought for compensation for victims and survivors of the Holocaust, the return of stolen assets, and other forms of restitution for those who had suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

Since the 1970s, Ben has worked tirelessly to promote development of international mechanisms to outlaw and punish aggressive war and the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. His efforts contributed to the establishment of the International Criminal Court and to the recognition of aggression as an international crime.

Ben is a tireless advocate for international criminal justice and the conviction that the rule of law offers the world a sustainable path to stem conflict and reach peaceful conclusions to geopolitical disputes. His unwavering goal has been to establish a legal precedent that would encourage a more humane and secure world in the future.

Ben, at age 101, is still active, giving speeches throughout the world about lessons learned during his extraordinary career. He is compelled by the imperative to replace the rule of force with the rule of law, promoting judicial mechanisms that can resolve conflict. He often tells young people to never give up because the fight for peace and justice is worth the long struggle ahead.