Ben Ferencz, the last living Nuremberg prosecutor, has died at age 103 | 60 Minutes

60 Minutes rewindnot often you get the chance to meet aman who holds a place in history likeBen farenz he's 97 years old barely fivefeet tall and he served as prosecutor ofwhat's been called the biggest murdertrial everthe courtroom was Nuremberg the crimegenocide the defendants a group ofGerman SS officers accused of committingthe largest number of Nazi killingsoutside the concentration camps morethan a million men women and childrenshot down in their own towns andvillages in Cold Bloodforens is the last Nuremberg prosecutoralive todaybut he isn't content just to be part of20th century history he believes he hassomething important to offer the worldright nowyou know you have seen the ugliest sideof humanity yes you've really seen eviland look at you you're the sunniest manI've ever metthe most optimistic at some old friendsoh this is nice watching Ben ferrandsduring his daily swim all right his gymworkout I'm showing off now and hismorning push-up regimen 100 is torealize he isn't just the sunniest manwe've ever met he may also be thefittest and that's just the beginningthe case we presentis a plea of humanity to law this isforens making his opening statement inthe Nuremberg courtroom 70 years ago thecharges we have broughtaccuse the defendants of havingcommitted crimes against humanity theNuremberg trials after World War II werehistoric the first International warcrimes tribunals ever held Hitler's toplieutenants were prosecuted first then aseries of subsequent trials were mountedagainst other Nazi leaders including 22SS officers responsible for killing morethan a million people not inconcentration camps but in towns andVillages across Eastern Europe theywould never have been brought to Justicewere it not for Ben for rent he lookedso young I was so young I was 27 yearsold had you prosecuted trials beforenever in my life kind of recall if I'dever been in a courtroom actually Perezhad immigrated to the U.S as a baby theson of poor Jewish parents from a smalltown in Romania he grew up in a toughNew York City neighborhood where hisfather found work as a janitor when Iwas taking the school at the age ofseven I couldn't speak Englishspoke Yiddish at home and I was verysmall and so they wouldn't let me in soyou didn't speak English till you wereeight that's correct could you read noon the contrary the silent movies alwayshad writing on it and I would ask myfather who was Lucas and in Yiddish whatdoes it say what does it say he couldn'tread it eitherforeignhe became the first in his family to goto college then got a scholarship toHarvard Law School but during his firstsemester the Japanese bombed PearlHarbor and he like many classmates racedto enlist he wanted to be a pilot butthe Army Air corps wouldn't take him andhe said you know you're too short yourlegs won't reach the pedals the Marinesthey just looked at me and said forgetit kidso he finished at Harvard then enlistedas a private in the Army part of anartillery Battalion he landed on thebeach at Normandy and fought in theBattle of the Bulge toward the end ofthe war because of his legal training hewas transferred to a brand new unit inGeneral Patton's third Army created toinvestigate war crimes as U.S forcesliberated concentration camps his jobwas to rush in and gather evidenceferenz told us he is still haunted bythe things he saw and the stories heheard in those camps a father whomy son told me the story his father haddiedjust as we were entering the camp andthe father had routinely saved a pieceof his bread for his son and he kept itunder his arm at night[Music]he kept it under his arm at night so theother inmates wouldn't steal it you knowso you see these human stories which arenot they're not real they're not realbut they were real ferenz came homemarried his childhood sweetheart andvowed never to set foot in Germany againbut that didn't last long GeneralTelford Taylor in charge of theNuremberg trials asked him to direct ateam of researchers in Berlin one ofwhom found a cache of top secretdocuments in the ruins of the Germanforeign Ministry he gave me a bunch ofa binders full binders and these weredaily reports from the Eastern Frontwhich unit entered which town how manypeople they killed classified so manyJews so many gypsies so many othersFrance had stumbled upon reports sentback to headquarters by secret SS unitscalled einsatzgruppen or action groupstheir job had been to follow the GermanArmy as it invaded the Soviet Union in1941 and kill Communists Gypsies andespecially Jews there were threethousand SS officers trained for thepurpose and directed to kill WithoutPity or remorse every single Jewish manwoman and child they could lay theirhands on so they went right in after thetroops someone behind the troop round upthe Jews kill them all only one piece offilm is known to exist of the einsatzgroup and at work it isn't easy to watchwell this is a typical operation wellsee I hear this they rounded them upthey all have already tags on themthey're making them run to their owndeath yes it was a rabbi coming alongthere just put them in a dead shoot himthereoh my God oh my God yeah this footagecame to light years later at the timefarens just had the documents and hestarted adding up the numbers when Ireached over a million people murderedthat way over a million people if morepeople than you've ever seen in yourlifeI took a sample I got on the next planeflew from Berlin down to Nuremberg and Isaid to Taylor General we've got to puton a new trial but the trials werealready underway and prosecution staffwas stretched thin Taylor told forensadding another trial was impossible andI started screaming I said look I gothere mass murder mass murderer on aparallel scale and he said can you dothis in addition to your other work andI said sure he said okay so you'll do itand that's how 27 year old Ben firenzbecame the chief prosecutor of 22Einstein's group and commanders at trialnumber nine at Nuremberg how do youplead to this indictment guilty or notguiltynot guiltybut for Rands knew they were guilty andcould prove it without calling a singlewitness he entered into evidence thedefendant's own reports of what they haddone exhibit 111 in the last 10 weeks wehave liquidated around 55 000 Jewsexhibit 179 from Kiev in 1941. the Jewsof the city were ordered to presentthemselves about 34 000 reportedincluding women and children after theyhad been made to give up their clothingand valuables all of them were killedwhich took several days exhibit 84 fromeinsight's group in D in March of 1942total number executed so far 91678 einsight's group in D was the unitof forens lead defendant Otto olendorfhe didn't deny the killings he had thegall to claim they were done inself-defense it was not ashamed of thathe was proud of that he was carrying outhis government's instructions how didyou not hit him there was only one timeI wanted to reallyone of these my defensive he gets up andhe sayswhich is what the Jews were shot I hearit here for the first time boy I felt ifI had a bayonet I would have jumped overthe thing I put a bayonet why she wantedand let it come out the other you knowyou knowI've got his reports of how many killedyou know I'm an innocent left did youlook at the defendant's faces defensephase will blank all the time Defendersabsolutely blank they could like thisthey're waiting and waiting for a buswhat was going on inside of you of meyeahI'm still churningto this minuteI'm still churning all 22 defendantswere found guilty and four of themincluding olendorf were hanged farensays his goal from the beginning was toaffirm the rule of law and deter similarcrimes from ever being committed againdid you meet a lot of people whoperpetrated war crimes who wouldotherwise in your opinion have been justa normal upstanding citizen of coursehere's my answer these men would neverhave been murderers had it not been forthe war these were people who couldquote Goethe Who Loved Wagner who werepolite what turns a man into a SavageBeast like that he's not a Savage he'san intelligent patriotic Savage when hedoes the murder though no he's apatriotic human being acting in theinterest of his country in his mind youdon't think they turn into Savages evenfor the ACT do you think the man whodropped the nuclear bomb on Hiroshimawas a Savageand now I will tell you something veryprofound which I have learned after manyyears war makes murderous out ofotherwise decent peopleall wars and all recent peoplethe story will continue after thisso for rent has spent the rest of hislife trying to deter war and war crimesby establishing an international Courtlike Nuremberg he scored a victory whenthe international criminal court in TheHague was created in 1998. they'd pleaseyour honors he delivered the closingargument in the Court's first case nowyou've been at this for 50 years if notmore we've had genocide since then andgoing on right this minute going onright this minute and so Dan we've hadRwanda we've had Bosniayou're not getting very far what don'tsay that people get discouraged theyshould remember from me it takes couragenot to be discouraged did anybody eversay that you're naive of course somepeople say I'm crazy well if it's naiveto want peace instead of War let us makesure they say I'm naive because I wantpeace instead of War if they tell methey want war instead of peace I don'tsee the naive I say they're stupidstupid to an incredible degree to sendyoung people out to kill other youngpeople they don't even know who neverdid anybody any harm never harm themthat is the current systemI am naive that's insane thanks thankyou very much for rent is legendary inthe world of international law and he'sstill at it are you going to help mesave the world I heard so it's up to youhe never stops pushing his messageHolocaust Museum he says he's gratefulfor the life he's lived in this countryand it's his turn to give back you aresuch an idealist I don't think of anidealist I'm a realist and I see theprogress the progress has beenremarkable look at emancipation of womenin my lifetime your city has a femalelook what's happened to the same-sexmarriages you to tell somebody a man canbecome a woman a woman can become a manand a man can marry a man they alwayssaid you're crazy but it's a realitytoday so the world is changing and youshouldn't you know be despairing becauseit never happened before nothing newever happened before but we're on a rollwe're marching forward Ben I'm sittinghere listening to you and you're verywiseand you're full of energy and passionand I can't believe you're 97 years oldwell I'm still a young man clearly andI'm still in there fighting and you knowwhat keeps me goingI know I'm right