Ben Ferencz, the last Nuremberg Trials prosecutor, died

After World War II, a court was established in Nuremberg, Germany. Nazi officers who committed war crimes were tried in these courts. Ben Ferencz, who was a prosecutor in these courts, died at the age of 103.

Ferencz, who stayed in a nursing home in Boynton Beach, Florida, was the last person alive and served in the Nuremberg courts.

According to the news of Ihlas News Agency, announcing that Ferencz died in his sleep, the US Holocaust Museum said the world had lost "a leader who sought justice for the victims of the Holocaust".

WHO IS BEN FERENCZ?

He was born in 1920 in Transylvania, part of Romania. He immigrated to the US with his family to escape anti-Semitism. Later settled in New York, Ferencz graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943 and joined the US Army. Taking part in the Normandy Landings and the Battle of the Bulge, Ferencz later joined a team tasked with investigating Nazi war crimes and gathering evidence. The team was visiting concentration camps in Germany and interviewing survivors, taking notes on conditions.

'I CAN'T FORGET WHAT I SAW'

Describing Buchenwald, one of the largest camps in Germany, as "a burial house of indescribable horror", Ferencz said: "There is no doubt that I have suffered unforgettable traumas from what I saw as a war crimes investigator at Nazi extermination centers. I still try not to talk or think about the details."

Returning to New York after the war to practice law, Ferencz was soon hired to help prosecute the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials, despite having no prior trial experience. He served as attorney general in the case of members of the Einsatzgruppen mobile SS death squads operating in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe and estimated to have killed more than a million people. Of the 24 high-ranking Nazi officials Ferencz accused, 12 were sentenced to death and 10 were executed.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002 with the support of Ferencz, who campaigned for the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute war crimes.

(Ihlas News Agency)