Beginning. My father got a job as a janitor. They did not call them supers in those days in apartment houses in Hells Kitchen. Those were my earliest recollections. I went to the public schools. My parents divorced when i was six. I lived with an aunt in one. One. They would not take me to school until i was seven. My education was in new york. I caught up with my education by with an high school accelerated curriculum. I went to city college in new york. At city college i majored in sociology. I was always interested in crime prevention. Maybe that related to my early recollections in a highly dense wase area, Hells Kitchen black because there were more crimes committed there than any place else. That may have stimulated my interest in crime prevention. Were you an only child . Benjamin i had an older sister. I lived with an aunt. They both remarried. They both lived happily after. My mother and father were related. They were second cousins. They were assigned to marriage at birth and it did not work out. Their subsequent marriages work very well and we were all good friends. What made you go to law school . Benjamin i always wanted to be a lawyer. Somehow i always wanted to be a lawyer. Thats where i went to law school. I was interested in crime prevention. I had no interest in taxation. I thought i was never going to have any money. I have no interest in corporate law. I was immediately involved in criminal law and did very well. Work under one of these student aid programs. He was a leading authority on the field of juvenile crime. That had an important influence on my career. When you were in college, the war had started. Benjamin it started when i was in law school. 7, pearlr december harbor. When the United States involvement in the war, it was on in europe. It began for the United States when i was at harvard. Everybody went down to enlist. Aware of a National Socialism western mark western mark . Benjamin there was a large movement to stay out of the war. There was an antiwar protest movement. I was more inclined to be sympathetic to that movement. There was a general awareness of persecution of the jews. I remember a protest rally the place in Madison Square garden. A boycott called for against germany. It wasnt until i got into harvard that this is to begin to receive report of the atrocities in poland. He had been invited by the United Nations work rhymes to be the american member of that. He gave those reports to me. I was very aware of what happened to the jews in poland. We got those reports in 1921. They would like detailed in terms of the size of the massacres. We did not have such details as pulling out a thin making mattresses out of the hair. We knew the jews were being rounded up and exterminated in. We did not have the characterization nature of the specific units involved in a massive. When did you enlist . Benjamin theres another story there. I assumed i would go into the army immediately when the war broke out. I tried to get into different. I applied for military intelligence. I knew french and i thought it my parents and citizens for 15 years and i was disqualified. I was too short to be a pilot and. I tried to be a navigator and i reapplied. I failed one of my eyes. Then i try to take training exercises. I was the little school. Theres a strange story that my i try to get into every branch of the Service Without success until i got out i was school and concerned something had happened. The clerk at the draft board came to see me afterward. He had received a letter from , i think it was dean landis. Take a whilewould before i finished the first year and they should give me a deferment. Iny had granted that are thought it would go in. Draft orderof the came up to me afterwards and said how did you do in law school. I was puzzled by that question. He had been a student at yale during the first world war. He was wounded and had never gone back to law school. Protect you from that experience. It was just a strange flute. He reached his hand up with. What you want to sign up so badly . Benjamin i could have stayed on the war. I was having trouble with my stomach. Follow we cant meet your dietary needs. I did not want to ask anybody else to die for me. So i was trying to get in. Where did you first go . Benjamin the wrecking dies my talent. I was fresh out of the harvard law school. I was in the supply room as a typist. They really did record dies my talent. They made me a private first class. At that rate, i would be a general in 18 months. Three years later, i was still a corporal. I did not like the army. Why not . Benjamin i hated the regimentation. It was nothing particularly directed against the american or. Erman armies and its the dehumanizing process that takes place part of the training, and take people and make robots out of them. I refused. That caused me grief in the army. I was reprimanded. Ive refused to march. I explained to my First Sergeant the region march goes back to roman times when the soldiers had to carry shields. Theyve been attacked by spears from the hills. It was very important that they moved as a unit. If weas very wharton paid are marching in formation with a guy with a machine gun, he is going to kill you all. Off i went to the slop pits. I cleaned latrines and slop. That was good training for later in life. I think i hate all armies. Antimilitarist i think training a human being to push a button and killing a Million People in thinking nothing about it is a horrendous thing to do. The germansly what didnt to the concentration camp inmates. Thes the first thing germans did to the concentration cap inmates. They shave their heads and gave them a number. You assigned . Benjamin basic training in carolina. You do all of those ridiculous things. I kept saying there is a war going on. Is there anything more i can do western mark it was a form of torture. The torture was directed at me personally i had applied for kernel on the examining port had been my classmate at harvard. He said what you doing here . I had no problem passing. Called. Ver by Commanding Officers felt the same way. I tried to get out of that the i was in the wrong outfit. We were being trained for the in asian of france. We did not know then. There was a 115th tripoli gun battalion. There was a 116th. We were not on the first wave. When the day came, i was at the lands and in england waiting for the nation. My outfit one over. It it was a couple of days after the date. The captain who was a new captain said you are staying here. Again, it was one of those times where somebody reached out. I was left. Off they went. It was several days later. I rejoined my outfit. The germans had retreated from the beach. I was perched on top of the hill, manning a machine gun. From there on in, it was just chasing the germans all over. General patton was the commander or in his tactic was to pursue we had no way of repelling them. They didnt. Off we went. I was with that outfit all across france. I had been in five campaigns. It was every campaign in europe or in. It was not necessary for me people to be shooting people through the head. The outfit is pursuing and we were fired upon. I was under artillery fire and tank fire. Ofdid shoot down a lot planes. Usually american planes. We did not call it friendly fire then. The planes were coming in, they had a gadget called identification friend or foe that was supposed to give off a signal. Or thethey forgot it equipment was off. The plane had been damaged. I had to go out and pick up pieces of american flyers and hope i can find a fingerprint to identify them. Fireworks may look nice on the fourth of july. I dont go to fourth of july celebrations. I dont like fireworks. I was in an outfit that was commanded by antisemites. Peoplee payments carryovers from the first world war. He did not get a job in civilian life. A lot of rednecks and i was frequently referred to as jew boy. They put me through it again and again. They just thought that was great. They resented any effort of mine output of become an officer in. There was a lot of antagonism. I cant really talk about to pull. It was very typical of this outfit. It did not apply to all officers, but it did to my First Sergeant. What did you get involved with the War Crimes Team bush bush . Benjamin when we reached luxembourg. Working in luxembourg. I was told you are being transferred out in that was a shock and surprise to me. I had been warned i would ship out in a box. Then i arrived at third army headquarters. I had never seen a judge advocate for. Before. I had been recommended for transport from washington. The unit had been instructed to set up a war crimes branch. Waskernel told me that said a war crime. He had no i you. Idea. He had no such experience. He set down and i explained to him. I was quite an authority on war crimes. I had done all the research for a book. I had read everything. My job was to make summaries of everything that had been. I had a very retentive mind. In whatthat began did that mean . Kernels and ifive was the only enlisted man. They were people who were shellshocked. I dont remember them being lawyers. They had no idea about war crimes. Some of them i never saw sober. We did help. Reportsginning to get of crimes against american flyers who shot down. Mass graves and voices. The first real reinforcement arrived. It was fellow named jack. Grads yale law graduate. He had been building up bridge. And hecovered with mud stood at attention and he saluted. He said he was reporting for duty. Thats how it again. We began to bring some more people in. Originally, it was just the two of us. What did you do . Benjamin the early investigation would be we had to flyers who had come down and been killed by the populace down below. From anved reports informer or somebody in the field. It had come down to the war crimes unit or in i would get into a jeep and take off for the location. Very often by myself or i would have a driver. Site andrrive at the go to the nearest authority. Report of war crimes being committed here. Describe everything you know. If you lie you will be shot. I want you to arrest everybody within the next 500 yards of this place and bring them in here and sit down and have them write statements. I would find somebody who spoke german. I managed to make myself understood enough to get the job done. Get somebody knows english and german. You explain to these people. Them, right down what happened. Anybody who lies will be shot. They would stand at attention and tremble and sit down and write. Statements. Ect the they would read them to me. When you read 75 statements, you get 40 that say the same ink. Thing. You know what happened. Date,d write that on this a plane with shot down and to flyers were captured. Populace the eye the or they were taken to the gestapo headquarters. I would go to the gestapo headquarters. I would capture the records and find who was in charge. I would find the bodies and dig them up. Sometimes i dug them up myself. Sometimes i had a crew. I would call it a camera crew, take pictures try to identify them. We would issue an arrest warrant to arrest soandso. Prisoners of war were being captured and identified. That kind of investigation i can do by myself. I did. Eventually, you were caught her in sometimes it was a matter of weeks or months. Were crimes trials in the dock our concentration camp. Thats where we began. The first were crimes trials for nuremberg took place in a concentration camp. On the basis of elevenths evidence collected by me. We went out in the field and collected it. Thats before we ran into the concentration camps. How many trials did you have their western mark . Benjamin they were already on while i was there. They were still going on when i came back. I was prosecuting at nuremberg. Those trials were still going on. I thought they were terrible. They pour little resemblance to normal due process. I was partly guilty and responsible for that kind of behavior. Man and he lied that he wasnt there when i had 20 witnesses who said he was, he usually ended up with a confession of. I did not have to shoot him through the head to get it. He was of the impression that if he continued to lie that i would. Circumstances, i would bring an officer and tell him to get that confession again. Not standal one but up to close scrutiny. Themselves, the judges were officers. The procedures were very informal. Im not suggesting we tried to punish innocent people. They were all guilty as hell. Not very impressed with the quality of the law work being done. In some the letters i wrote home, i said this is a disgrace. We have forgotten our ideals. It was a difficult time. Most of my more Interesting Times were in apprehending some of these relatively minor criminals or collecting the evidence of the smaller crimes. There were some massacres of civilians in different towns. The concentration camps themselves. Were you frightened when you went out to investigate . Benjamin i was mad. I dont recall having any sense of fear. There was some sense of outrage. It was not a sense of vengeance. I was quite determined. It was a job i realized had to be done. I was so engrossed in ending the job done that there was no time for fear. There was no real fear. I dont know that emotion. Reg out an authorization request from the commanding general, who was packed in saying that all units are requested to give all assistance. Crimes,conducting war investigations on behalf of his headquarters. All assistance should be given to him. Using that, i could go to the cardinal and say i am the head of the war crimes investigation, and i want to i want you to send me a company of troops to surround this area. All of this area closed or sealed. Sometimes, the kernel would say, you want me to call general patton directly . I had no respect whatsoever to military authority. I have nothing but contempt. The higher the rank, the more contempt. I had no difficulties. I refused to wear the insignia. Mike Lieutenant Colonel was promoted he called me with great pride. He said, i realize this is dumb and i show you my appreciation. I want to give you these stripes, and he may be a sergeant. I took the stripes and i threw it in the trash can. I said i am sorry sir, but these stripes will interfere with my work. Cannot command the authority that i need to do the job. Excuse me if i do not wear them. He was very insulted by that. I think the final act that he did before he was transferred instructions that i would be reduced to private. You were a kernel . Benjamin i cannot do my job as a sergeant either. I refused to wear the stripes. All of my war pictures, you will never find insignia on me. Was this the real reason for not wearing the stripes . Benjamin absolutely. Going back to your first question, what authority did i have . A private, corporal, or sergeant has no authority. The job had to be done, and i got the job done. I did not care about the absence of military rank. Y wanted to promote to they wanted to promote me to sergeant long before and i refused. I said give it to him, i do not want it. When you left the estoppel where did you go . You want to the concentration camps . Hostages inlling of , shooting down allied fliers. Heard that was which i was much involved with later. We do not know those names. We knew that was a concentration camp. A report would come into the headquarters that so and so tanked a division. Re was the conditions are horrible, etc. A report would come to me, and i would say im going out into the field to investigate. Later on, we had others who go into the field. Because i was the most experienced and nobody knew what else to do, i would go out. , get there ast best as i possibly could, usually on a jeep. Find out which unit had entered and going to the camp. What i would do immediately would be to secure the records. An office, ys nobody could go in or out. All records are confiscated and secured. Seized the death books, the registry of people who were killed. They were long, big, black books and were loosely folded. The recorded all of the inmates as they were killed. They will put him accident the date, name, date of birth and his number. And then the reason for his death. They were obviously fictitious. Shot while trying to escape, typhoid, or other diseases. Those books became the basic evidence for what had happened in the camp and who was there. Up byi would follow that bringing in witnesses from the survivors to take statements from them describing what had happened in the camp. By the time i got through, ok two or three days. I had a picture and go back to headquarters and write a report and issue arrest warns. Lets talk about the book of law. You said there was a prisoner who had bid buried in some material. Sure, i i am not should perhaps mention that i was moving very quickly from one camp to the next. As soon as i secured the evidence in the camp, i heard there was another camp somewhere else. , raced off to the other camp because if we did not do that, everything was destroyed. The American Army would come and destroy everything they could. The inmates tore everything up our apart. Remember we took pictures. These additional state labor camps all around the main camps. There were many of them. I would go from one camp to the next. These are names that i recall. Knew it at that time, but sometimes i did not. I just knew it was a concentration camp. , probablyse camps luxembourg as of the inmates came to me soon as i came and said i have been waiting for you. I said what for . A said, with me, and he took shuttle and took me out of the room which was her office they are office. We walked to the camp next to the electric fence which is part of the surrounding bar wire, and he dug a hole. Ive never it was right near a post of a fence. He dug a hole with the shovel and took out a bundle, with a box wrapped that look like racks. And he said lets go back to the office and he opened this. Apparently, in that particular ss had their own social club where they went drinking at night. Membership in the club was evidenced by little identity cards, two sites voted together. Inside weather photographs and checked out how many times they attended the club. Man, ande name of the date of birth and membership. When the stamps were filled on that card, he got into the card. This inmate have to type up a new one and destroy the old ones. Instead of destroying it, he saved them. Every time he did that, he ran the risk of being killed for disobeying orders. But he saved them and put them all together and buried them. Knowing that one day, there would be a day of retribution. For him to have risked his life every day and pretend to hope that there would be freedom for him something, i thought it was a marvelous thing. It was a tremendous piece of evidence. I have the record and photograph and identification of every ss man who had gone through that camp in that period. What was it like for you to go into these camps . What did you see . Benjamin im sure that everybody by this time has seen me photographs of what the camp looks like. Dust, naked,in the little items of clothing on, many of them are not moving. Mostlyem staring bones, human being and old men ying 50 or 60 pounds weighing 50 or 60 pounds. Medical troops came, people were hosed down. And held of one man in the other hand. Bodiesse, the piles of and cards like would drawn into the crematory. Carts loaded with bodies, hands and arms hanging out on both sides. I remember all of that very vividly. , most appalling , where the human beings who have been so dehumanized, that in their appearance, they look like rodents. They would go on all fours, hands turned into claws looking for potato peels looking in the garbage piles like rats. Grabbing in trying to find food, stuffing it into their mouths and looking around. Just as you would expect any animal. Who hadre human beings been dehumanized by this terrible process to which they have been subjected. Marveled in later years that i would meet people who i did not recognize, but i knew they had been through that. They seemed to be quite normal. I knew that they could not be quite normal. Touch to this whole process of what happened to human beings , struck me as being more terrible than people who were on the verge of death or dying of starvation or disease and so on. Camps, i member this very vividly. , they wereible killing people by throwing them off with the cliff into the quarry down below. Raidsrse the mass everywhere. There wasus typhus in the camp and i got out. People were lying around in their own fields and filth and excrement. People lying on top of each other in one bunk, everybody sick, throwing up. There was a stench and disease and despair of someone holding up a hand for a glass of water or drink. Unmanageable unimaginable that people would subject other people to that kind of treatment. It was something that i will never recover from. Benjamin along with your questions. Go on with your questions. Did you have to leave when you will go into a camp for a little while, and just get out . Benjamin not just to get away from the scene, the work was so overwhelming, i never felt that cannoto stop because i carry on. I carried on very well. I just built a wall to cut it done ando it had to be do not let it impact on your emotional response. I left the camps because the conditions were so it was dangerous to stay, but only after i do what i had to do. Did you take names . Benjamin so many of them who were. That is in fact those are the ones of whom i collected statements immediately. Some of them were in good shape. They were in such good shape, they went chasing after the ss. I described in one of my letters, a scene of a ss man who was being chased by the prisoners. He wanted me to take him prisoner. He had a civilian jacket on in an attempt to escape and jumped on the jeep. He said please, take me with you. , andd show me your papers he showed me his papers, and he was a ss man. I said this is not your papers, these are not yours, you pick them up somewhere else. I said i do not take civilian prisoners, and i pushed him off. Is like russian inmate came across the hill on a bicycle and a half rifles on their back and they took the rifle out and he saw them coming and he ran in front of my jeep. There were troops moving out to the front, trucks and so on. , one ofhe ran in front the men come the inmate shot him in the back. He fell in front of the stroke which hit him and sent him flying on the side of the road. The truck driver jumped out, agi, and that i dont know what happened, he jumped in front. I said just keep moving. And wrote him into the ditch. Of theas an upsurge inmates on a rampage. As soon as those gates were opened, they went on a rampage. Any german who was within reach, rude today. They raped the woman, burned the. Ouse is down there were many who were quite capable of still working and those missing to be knowledgeable and better educated, i tried to catch them. Give them a statement, what happened, what circumcise is of the camp, describing the torture mechanisms that existed in some of these chains and walls against which they shot people. People were thrown under wires and all of that. Field for a ample credible and reliable testimony from the inmates themselves. Revenge, and common . Some people said there is benjamin it depends on how weak they were. These two, i think they were soviet in the camp. They were not that weak, they wanted to get a hold of as many germans as they could. I saw them beating inmates to death, burning them alive. It was a very gory business. Not being inmates . Benjamin no, beating guards. Not to kill them, they wanted to burn them alive, and they did. Mightose as a soldier, i have tried to stop them. I was usually alone. The troops and tanks had come and gone and passed ahead. The ss officers flooded ss is a fled as fast as they could. Me, of the russians said to we were fraternizing, difficulty of communication. There were some of which who we could communicate. One said, what is the matter with you americans, are you crazy . You know what you did, why dont you ask them . And they said kill them. And they did. We had a different approach at the time. Im not sure which was right and wrong. Did you know if any american soldiers ever shot the ss . Benjamin i never saw that. Except perhaps in combat. If they were fired at upon entering a camp, im sure they fired back. Im sure that there were casualties in any exchange. Just taking out ss men for him such anever saw execution. Nor do i recall ever having heard of such an execution. Womenther living prisoners . Benjamin there were women and children. The boys were usually abused why the ss guards, homosexuals, and other exchange favors. The boys that were born in the camps were concealed by their mothers in different places. Outsidemps surrounding the main camp, different distances. Whatever they were able to do, they worked, and sometimes they were small children and they were put to work doing things like curling wires. It was quite remarkable that they survived. They were also marked at total extermination. Soon you with the agency with a wagon horse. Of course he had requisitioned somewhere liberated. Did you go to many sub camps during this. . Benjamin i want from one camp as the next. It was important to get to the next camp as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the evidence was destroyed. Troops had a way of celebrating liberation of any place by smashing everything inside. To reliefe very good attention, but it is not good for collecting war crime evidence. By the time i got to the eagles nest, the main window looking out at this beautiful view looking at the alps, there was not a splinter of glass left. It was gone. Every file cabinet and glass top have been filled by agi leaving his best regards to mr. Hi tler. Here was nothing there it was very important to preserve the evidence and move quickly. This was a problem im sure were crime investigators are having today. Happened . You are gathering all of this evidence and what was jack at this time . Benjamin jack was doing the same thing. We meet together and say where have you been . Is that i will have been at so and so, and occasionally will go out together on a job. You cover this, and i cover that. Then, we would come back to our office. ,he office was the third army kept moving as the front cap moving up. It was in munich, or someplace else. Usually took over german we had a room and desk and typewriter. Et back to him with ever with whatever documents i had and write up a report. The reports would say, on certain dates, u. S. Army troops entered the camp of x. There, the troops encountered the following scene. There originally 50,000 inmates in the camp, 12,000 still alive, 10,000 have been marched out the day before. Cap officers were so and so, the crematoria was still going, body stacked in front of the crematoria. I took statements from 10 witnesses. The suspected persons responsible for these crimes are so and so, issue orders immediately to have been put on the list. The civil registry of war criminal suspects has been distributed to all members of the u. S. Army or where any pows contend with this list. Report back to headquarters. The goal of my investigation was to describe what had happened to collect credible evidence, inadmissible in court of law which could be used to convict the persons responsible of a known crime on under International Law. That was the objective, and that is what we did. There were a few of us doing that. Later, we added a few more people. The total number was never more than half a dozen, or a dozen who are competent to know what represented a war crime and to prepare a report which would stand up in the court of law. The bait became that then became say to the defendant, your name is listed and so and so, so and so said something, and what you have to say. That is where it went. You folks were the War Crimes Team . Benjamin we were the War Crimes Team. You have this one statement and send it to the officer and say you sign there. You say it is an affidavit. Just one statement, signed right here. Yes sir. That was it. That was the evidence of war crimes. As a that funny isnt that funny . One thing that comes to mind desperately particularly, the may Day Celebration at one of the concentration camps with the inmates were celebrating their liberation. It was organized by the communists who were in charge of most of the camps after liberation. With was a big tribunal roosevelt and stalin, and churchill, and they were be big speeches. First, there would be a parade of inmates. They were brought down and national groups. Italians, thech, romanians, hungarian, and that there was a group marching along and they had no flight. Asked who are they . They said those are the j ews. Jews are separate. It was still antisemitism still in the camp after liberation as a reflection of all of the ethnic hostility which we see today in many parts of the world today. Mether event which strikes as noteworthy, as the camps were about to be liberated, the germans tried to move the inmates out. Those who were still able to walk to work. The left those behind to be killed, die, were too sick. They marched them out and they one of the camps, and they took into the woods and they marched at night. If anybody faulted on the way, they were immediately shot. If anybody paused to try to pick up a potato or eat a root or something, they were shot. I was able to follow this trail through the woods of mass graves. 0, 20, 30, 50 killed i would get to the nearest farmer and say dig them up. He said yes, we heard firing him and there was shooting. Over any woods. I would say, lets go. Would go to the woods and we dug up the place. I said get shovels and i saw germans on the street. Take the shovel and take them up. We picked up the bodies of people who were obviously shot in the dead, usually shot in the skull. The shot was probably healing from the back. With sixe covered over inches of their. Trail ofd follow the the crime being committed all along the way. There was nothing you could do. We were trying to overtake the column, which have been liberated up ahead. Some of the units have taken over. One of the difficulties i soldier, as an american , to resist the temptation to try to feed some of these people. We all carried emergency rations of chocolate bars, which is like a brick. We carried it in our gun belt, in case you get hit it and rake off a piece. If we gave it to an inmate, we had to kill them. It happened. A lot of the g. I. s for giving away what they had. A case of saltines i liberated somewhere and give it to the inmates. That was my first reminder that i should not do that because it will kill them. They ate a can of saltines, they would kill them. We had begin by feeding them soup for a week, light soup until their stomachs and systems were built. It is hard to draw a line. ,emember a concentration camp mass bodies everywhere and we buried them right away because of the disease. Campried them outside the entrances in trenches. We had the germans pick them up and throw them into a ditch. A few years later, aching back with one of my employees his wife did not know why we were in germany. I said, i will show you why, and i took them on a tour on some of these camps. There were neatly marked graves with crosses on them. I said that is baloney, because i was here when they were being buried. The fountains of inmates who had died in the camp and just put a marker on them, that was all they could do. World a nightmarish coming something very surrealistic about this. There is very little reality to what the normal human being would be able to stand. Did you consider the liberation of the camps really liberation . Was his accidental . It was real liberation. That was not the primary goal. The troops were moving forward and they stumbled upon many of these camps. They do not know they were there , in some cases they had a report. I had a one line i had a wall map showing for camps. We knew they were there and they would move. , will be did not know was all of these sub camps scattered all around. There were hundreds of them. I have a list of over 1000 concentration camps run by germans and german industry, and the germans themselves did not know. We had 300 or 400. The socalled small camps had a couple hundred people in them, they existed everywhere and they were similar. People were dying, they were killed, they were lying around. Were you told to not feed the prisoners or did you learn this . Benjamin we learned it. There was no time to sit down and have briefings. It was a very mobile and hectic atmosphere, tension and movement and trauma. Drama. If you gave somebody some food, you gave it to them and saw them choke and drop, you did not give it to them anymore. It was not anybody given me a lecture. It was pretty well known that the medical men that came in, they began with intravenous feeding and tea and a little soup and that was it. We saw what was going on. How would you describe the mental state going through these camps . You were blocking yourself from feeling anything . Benjamin it was interesting, as i look back on it. The human body has a capacity for survival which enables it to build up insulating mechanisms to prevent yourself from going mad. I do not recall feelings of rage. I do not recall feelings of fear. I do not recall feelings of hatred. I do recall the urgency of doing something and getting the job done before its too late. I went about my business as best i could and i did it, i think, very well, by putting myself into a mental cocoon which was surrounded by an ice barrier which just enabled me to go on, and that ice barrier lasted until it melted, but as long as it was necessary to do the job, as a self protective device, i think. Now youve gathered all of this material, and the War Crimes Teams have a lot of this evidence. Now what is going to happen . Benjamin the higher headquarters have to decide what to do about the trials. The president has declared we are going to have war crimes trials, henchmen have been put on notice they will be held accountable for the concentration camps and whatever else they did. The government said to act. There were not ready to act. The war had just ended. The army already had these records, we had the prisoners, we had to do something with them. There was a 12th army core group. They wanted me to work with them. I got a letter from the general asking if i wanted to be transferred to his current quarters. To his headquarters. I said, i dont want to do his work anymore, i want to do yours. I want to get out of the army. I recall having nailed up the sign, headquarters third United States army, war crimes trials. It was liberated by the seventh army, not the third army, but we were occupying, general patton was there. We took these Army Officers who had been assigned not because they were lawyers, but because they were at liberty and they needed staff and they had nobody else, and they were going to set up tribunals. These were military tribunals. Theyre not to be confused with what happened later at the International Military tribunal at nuremberg. These were military style tribunals which existed under the laws of war for a long time. They were staffed by military officers similar to a courtmartial. They would have three offices, a colonel, major, captain. Highestranking was the presiding officer. Prosecutors were selected by the judge advocate group grade there may have been lawyers, some of them werent. There was a soldier who had gone awol. Then they had all these nice reports prepared by me, by a few other guys. Another lawyer came on board. They did all the work. They would have these reports, and based on those reports, i would draw the indictment. The indictment would say that s. S. Major soandso is indicted for mass murder in such and such camp during such and such period. The evidence is photographs, statements from the survivors, affidavits of witnesses who were there. On the basis of that, the defendant would be asked how do you plead. They would say not guilty. All right, lets proceed with the trial. And they proceeded with the trial. For example, if were telling stories, i arrested a woman in a town near franklin. It was a typical allied flyer case. Any allied flyer case coming down was to be taken into custody and killed, that was the orders from berlin. This allied flyer came down in this town and the townspeople began to beat them up. Eventually he was taken by a fireman or s. S. Man and they split his head with a crowbar and killed him. I knew who that was, and i got a hold of him too. One woman was beating the flyer on the head with a shoe. I think it was her mother who testified against her. She said, i told my daughter not to do that. She said, what is your daughters name . Where is your daughter now . I got a hold of the daughter and i said, you were beating this guy with the shoe . Not me. I know it was you. It was your red shoe. You beat him on the head with the heel of a red shoe. Thats true, we had just been bombed, i lost my children, my husband was killed. She was quite an attractive young woman and i thought, if i got the guy who split his head and the whole mob was beating him up i put her under house arrest. When the child came up i happened to be there. One of the guys says you handle we got the trial on. Of take a look. Sure enough, i stop this lady there and i stop the guy who did the job. At a certain point the trial did not last long, less than a day or two, and that was it. This woman fainted. I said to the doctor, i know that woman. Whats wrong with her . He said, shes just pregnant. By an american shoulder, one of the prison guards. Theres the story. Was she trying to avoid a Death Penalty by getting herself impregnated . Was she in love with an american g. I. . I think she got 18 months prison sentence or Something Like that. The guy who split his head was sentenced to death. I dont know if he was executed or not. They did execute some, but not all. Those trials came to an end while we were at nuremberg. They got orders from the pentagon, the presiding judge said they were crime war crime trials are over, go home. And that was the end of that. That how you deal with war crimes. There were thousands of indictments benjamin there were many thousands of criminals, but there were very few indictments and fewer trials and fewer which had any significance. These were based on military pattern of military trials against american soldiers for violating the rules of the code in one way. By the time we got to nuernberg, it was quite obvious to me that these trials are not going to be given any historical significance at all. They had best be forgotten. There are earlier records of what happened in the camps which were liberated by the americans. Our goal was to try only those Commanding Officers in the camps which had been liberated by the American Army or those that committed crimes against american soldiers. This probably got into those allied flyer cases. Do you think it was a mistake to have these trials based on Court Martial law . Benjamin wasnt a mistake. Anytime you bring anybody to justice, even if its an inadequate court, its better than not bringing it to justice at all. Who could have followed the russian pattern and shot them. I never favored that. Way, itve felt that seemed to me that it was something that we should not do. The british favorite that. The russians not only favored it, they did it. It was quick justice, sometimes just, sometimes unjust. Im sure they killed people who were undeserving, but if you adopt the theory that any person sails on a pirate ship must expect to hang, it was a form of rough justice, and im not sure the detailed justice in the socalled military commissioners of courts was any better in the long run than allowing a rampage, as the russians did, in cutting it off. I got out of the army. Great day of my life, i was so eager to get away from germany, i never wanted to hear the name german again or germany again or camps or army again. And home i went. I was home for a few weeks and i got a telegram asking me to come to washington. Dear sir, please at our expense, would you kindly come to washington, we would like to talk to you. Signed by colonel mickey marcus. He later became quite renowned as a jewish general, west pointer, who went to fight in the israeli army and unfortunately, he was killed there. He was recruiting for the war crimes trials, which were being set up at nuremberg. He had somehow gotten wind of what i had been doing and i was one of the few people who was qualified by the Legal Training to withstand war crimes and my experience in the field. As an act of war crimes investigator who originally wanted his job was to recruit originally he wanted me to go back to the trials, but he was working out of the pentagon. I want to go see him, and i never met him before and he said, benny, we want you to go back to germany. I said, you want me to go back to germany . He said, yes, we need guys like you. You are going to go back there, we need you. I said, in order to get me to go back to germany, you have to declare war on germany again and be losing. I said, otherwise i dont go back to the army. He said, look, you cant do this. We need you desperately. All these years they did not need me at all. He said, you know the field and you have the right attitude and the right experience and so on. He said, you name your terms. Any terms you want. I said, i wont go back into the army no matter what because i dont trust the army. He said, i will let you go as a civilian and give you a military rank. I said, what rank . He said, ill make you a kernel. I said for three years the colonels had been sticking it to me. I said, this is for me. I went out and i telephoned to the young lady who had been waiting patiently for 10 years and i said, how would you like to go to europe for a honeymoon . She said, this is so sudden. I explained the situation and said it will be great. I would take the job for six months. I will go back and have a honeymoon and say i will stick colonels. I go back to marcus and say, i will take the job for six months as a civilian with the rank of full colonel. He said, youve got the deal. Draw up the papers. Then i got intercepted by a call from also than a candle colonel, would i come and talk to him. He said, im going back to nuremberg. The International Military tribunal is already in process. Justice jackson is there. Im going to take over after him and we will set up a series of subsequent trials. Im going to be in charge and on each staff, and ive heard about you and i would like you to come with me. I say, what have you heard about me . He said, ive heard your you are occasionally supported in. I said not correct, im usually insubordinate because i will not follow orders that i think are stupid. But ive also been checking up on you and i dont think your going to give me stupid orders. If you dont, you cannot get a better man. He said, you come with me. I called marcus and said, im off that army job. I had nothing but a good time and get even with the army. It turned out that he was an excellent lawyer and he was much engrossed in the old problem of who do you try if youve tried these few leading germans or you have the entire hierarchy of german life also responsible, that industries, industrialists, the s. S. People, the doctors, the lawyers, all of them conspired together to make it possible for hitler to do what he was doing. His approach was, we have to reach out into all the segments of German Society in order to demonstrate how it really worked. It was quite fascinating, and i took the work quite seriously. I said, what do you want me to do . I said, with got to get the evidence. Ill go to berlin. You go to berlin, set up an office in berlin. I went to berlin. My wife i had to leave behind. I set up the office of the chief of counsel for war crimes, Berlin Branch. To show you how my arming Army Training stood me in good stead, the first officer they assigned me was in the cellar of a building, and on the floor i found a picture of president truman lying in the dirt, no frame. I said, get me a picture frame. I got the picture frame, and i put the picture in and i wrote on it, to my friend benny from harry. Id put it on the wall. I have a friend named terry freedman. He couldve given me that picture. I called up the commanding kernel and said, id like to talk to you, colonel. He said, who is this . I said, im here on assignment from the president of the United States to carry on war crimes commissions. I want you to come over right away. Yes, sir. We have five or six rooms here. We need proper quarters. How are we going to get our job done . He says, yes sir, and immediately i got a whole building or half of a building right next to general grays headquarters. We had a staff of about 50 people. We scoured all the german archives, most of the staff were germanspeaking, former refugees, many of them jewish, who knew the german scene. We had the German Foreign office archives. We had 8 million or 9 million nazi Party Records in a bunker in the woods. Underneath were these tremendous nazi party files. The s. S. Was there. We sent this crew out to scour for incriminating evidence and outlined exactly what evidence we were looking for. Murder, crime, rape, burning, destruction, racial we did not use the word genocide in those days. They were already trained. They had all of the documents rate related to the crime that were trying to prove. Two things were necessary, and this is important and the public doesnt know it. In order to have a successful war crimes prosecution, you need evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that if specific, known crimes have been committed, number two, you need the defendant. If you havent got both together at the same time, youve got nothing. To bring the two together was not easy. You had the evidence, you didnt have the man. He was in argentina somewhere. You had the men, you do not have the evidence. You knew he was guilty as hell but you did not have the evidence. This crew, which my wife shortly joined, she came over with the first ship load of wives allowed to come to germany, scoured the files and began on the basis of what was coming in to break down the type of cases we might conceivably put together in a short period of time. We were under great time pressure, which is often forgotten. We had to do this on a limited budget within a fixed period of time because the political scene was changing and we wanted to get these trials over with. The prosecutors who are like me or even worse because i knew very little about germany, i did not even know the language properly at the time. The others who came in were from mississippi, arkansas they had the funniest idea where germany was. They had a senator friend and get them a job, whatever it was. We had a very mixed crew of prosecutors. This process began between berlin, primarily, and nuremberg. A coordination between the two. It was in that context that this plane was flying back and forth. Thats another story. We sent out crews to various parts of vienna to wherever the nazis were, information came in, and Justice Jackson had collected a tremendous amount of information in paris from captured nazi archives. Our job was to sort out this tremendous, all the german records and the german were terrific with records, except the secret ones they destroyed. To put all this together and understand this and see how it fits in, and this being done by a group of inexperienced Young American lawyers, who knew very little about what happened. Thats the job we had. How many months did you have to do this . Benjamin the time between we open the Berlin Branch and the first trial went on, i dont remember specifically now but i would guess three months, Something Like that. The first was a doctors trial 3 , or 4 months, Something Like that. And ready to go to trial, and submit all the evidence to the accused. Theres been a lot of misunderstanding. Justice jackson dealt with it, the International Military tribunal, which was the court that the russians or the french or the british or the americans also dealt with, its true, it was a trial of the victors only against the vanquished only. We did not try americans that nuremberg. That has subjected us to justified criticism. But the reason for the criticism is that such trials are tainted. Its very difficult to have a fair trial. We tried very hard and i think succeeded in overcoming and making sure to be very careful to make sure that the trials were absolutely fair, and they were. Youve heard my criticism of the army trials. The nuremberg trials were not a joke. They were already unfair trials. They were absolutely fair trials. I wrote an article on the nuremberg trials. There was clear evidence that it was failed. We gave the defendants all the evidence which we intended to use against them at least 30 days before trial, the court room was open to the public, including the german public. Everything was recorded in english and in german. The records were available to anybody who wanted to read them. The judgments were read in open court, the defendants were all represented by counsel of their which was excellent former nazi lawyers. They had the kind of trial although the nuremberg trial had to take a step forward in some directions to develop International Law and although they were trial by the victors, and although some of the victors themselves came with dirty hands, there was no excuse for the accused. The fact that a member of the jury was a murderer himself does not excuse the murderer who sits in the dock. The trials were very fair. My experience with those trials if a person can be objective about it they were the biggest advance from criminal law than it ever been taken to that time. You sat and watched the nuremberg trials . Benjamin i was in berlin working, collecting the evidence and running the office. It was a big office with a lot of things going on. The records were found in the burnt out gestapo headquarters in the basement, one copy out of 100 mimeographed copies at that time were accounting chronologically the murders in all the towns by these special extermination squads, and you had to have staff to do that to organize. We had trials against the high command, against some s. S. Officers, but we had not planned a trial for them. One of my researchers came in with these folders with these daily reports, how many jews they killed in which towns and the report would read, we entered the town of so and so but in the first 24 hours we succeeded in eliminating they always used euphemisms 14,312 jews, 816 gypsies. They sent that to berlin. They were consolidated from all these units in the field and issue a report. Those who said they didnt know. Before office, finance ministry, all of the ministries were getting copies of these reports. He gave it to me. I said, my god, we have a chronological listing of mass murder. I flew down to nuremberg and i presented this to the chief of counsel and yet to decide if it was going to be tried. He said this was terrific, where can we use it . I said, its a separate trial all by itself. We have the names of all the Commanding Officers. Each one with 10 or 12 different units under them. He said, we dont have staff anymore for that. Youve got to make staff. He said, maybe we can pull somebody off from somewhere else. I said, somebodys got to do it. He said, could you do it . I said, sure i could do it. He said, youve got your other job. I said, ive got it all lined up. So i became the chief prosecutor for the United States and what the united press called the biggest murder trial in history, 22 defendants convicted in murder of over a Million People, mostly jews. I was 27. That is how the war crimes trials were planned. Let me add another interesting point. There were 22 defendants. There were 3000 german officers who were engaged for a least a period of two years doing nothing else but killing jews and others perceive to be enemies of the reich. We tried 22. The reason we tried 22, we only had 22 seats in the dock. If we had 21, we would have tried 21. We knew it was only a small sampling of those responsible for mass murder on a daily basis, but thats all we could do under the circumstances. Our option was to do nothing, but to do that much. And we did, and we establish the record. We did not punish all the guilty. Those 22 were convicted, 13 of them sentenced to death. Only 4 were actually executed and some of them are practicing law in germany today. I have the documentary evidence chronicling specifically which units killed how many people, what types of people, in which towns. I had very little staff. I was the chief prosecutor, i had three assistants. 22 defendants were entitled to have 1 or 2 defense lawyers of their choosing. I decided i was going to prosecute the case without calling a single witness. The reason i did that was because the documentary evidence spoke for itself. It was absolutely reliable. It was their reports from the front. At that time i could have had available 1000 witnesses, any one of them would have come in and swore under oath that that particular defendant murdered his mother, his father, his children, and he witnessed it. I would have no trouble whatsoever, not that they would all be lying, but thats the way they felt. I was in and out of the camps. I decided i wasnt going to do that, because they would not be telling the truth. They would not be credible witnesses. Their own emotions would be such that their memory would be distorted and the testimony would be vulnerable. I decided to go to trial on the documents alone. Never had happened. I gave the defendants all of my records, these whole reports, 30 days before trial and i said, prepare your defense. When i opened the trial, they challenge the validity of the , theents they are fake russians fabricated them, the usual. They had immediately been taken into custody, no one has gotten near those files. Key,were under lock and and they guarded them all the time. Where they were found, how they were foun, it was clear, they were not going to get away with that. After three days, i rested my case. These are the defendants. Report. His 90,000 we killed jews. That is the defendant. That is the charge. Need any more evidence, thats it. I went down the list. After three days, i rested the case. No trial anywhere had been done with such deed and such economy of means. Then, the fun began. You never saw such a pack of lies as these guys brought out. 12,he report said on july 1941, a Commanding Officer killed 300,000 jews, the commander said, no, that is the commando. At that day, i happened to be at in burlington,s i said, this is the report. When i got back, what did i discover . No one would tell me what had happened. Here, i hear for the first time that jews are being killed. Can you imagine Something Like that . I was appalled. Guys,ame with excuses, who for years had been killing jews, had the gall to come and say, for the first time, jews were killed. Write down the list. They found some alibi backed up by hundreds of affidavits and with this is witnesses of all kind. He defense lasted 69 months nine months. They came in with all this baloney. The judge, much to my unhappiness, i would say, said, whatever evidence they want to submit, their defense is this miscible. Unmissable. I was serious. The rules of evidence, these guys were lying. I was not going to take that, so i called the investigative said,ion and i this is what we know about them, i want you to go to their homes, get on their roof, and tear their house apart, and bring me all the evidence you have. Every letter, every thing that has been written. Where was he at different times . I would find letters, and he was supposed to be at his grandmothers funeral he never had a grandmother, she died 50 years before. He wrote home to his wife saying, i was swimming in jewish blood. All the rest of it, the rebuttal. I went on with the rebuttal. If you were at your grandmothers funeral, what was the name of your grandmother . When was he born . When did she die . Have two grandmothers by that name . What about the handwriting, did you write this letter to your wife . With the rebuttal. They were all included beyond reasonable doubt. , a respected judge, went off into a monastery for a week to commune with his conscience, his god, and his faith. He came back, and began reading the sentences for the crimes of which you are convicted, this tribunal sentences you to death by hanging. Panels open, the prisoners step back, and they drop back into prison. The next one would come up. For the crimes of which you are convicted, this tribunal sentences you to hanging. One after the other. They talk them down and sentence them to death. Dayry germanic, most erotic in my life, i must say. You interrogated them. What was that like . Erencz i tried avoiding interrogating them before trial. I did not want to have any personal feelings interfere with of their acts. I wanted them to be tried for what they did. They could justify themselves on trial, and they did, they tried to. Defendant, father of five. Hildren, went down there well, maybe he wants me to take a message to his wife , and i would have been glad to do that. He justified killing 90,000 jews on the ground that it was necessary for the good of germany. He wased that asked why did you kill the children, he said, i was interested in the permanent security of germany, and it was necessary to kill them. I always insisted that my men do in my own way. The womaned them, if had an infant child, save the. Nfant you see, he was really an idealist and humanitarian. I went down to the death house, underneath the courthouse, and he was brought by two big arts, american troops, into a small cell. I talk to him through a small opening. I asked him if there is anything he wanted to say to me, or anything he wanted me to do for him. He said, the jews in america will suffer for what you have done to me. The slightest sign of her morse. On the contrary, im sure he went to his death believing that what he did was right, and he would do it again. , saw pictures of his burial where his gravesite was surrounded by large group of nazis giving the hitler salute, the final greeting to their fallen comrade, the murder of 90,000 jews. Most of the group, not the order police, but the group. Tself, where educated mr. Ferencz oh, yes. These guys were led by say well educated, distinguished german coulter citizens. They were kind to their cats and dogs, and they killed human beings like they would be flies. How did you make sense of that . Mr. Ferencz very good sense. If you begin with a premise, it follows quite logically. Life aregin and say, unhealthy, you exterminate the life. If you start with the premise of certain types of people, whether they be jews, gypsies, polls, or are parasites, then you exterminate them. Use terminate them you exterminate them completely if you can. When you stop and fail to realize that all human beings should be entitled to a minimum standard of Human Dignity and consider yourself a superior race, and others are there to serve you, that is what follows logically. Of my life, im spending now, trying to change that thinking that all human life should be treated as human beings. The education never made someone rational . Mr. Ferencz education is something that has several ways. Theres some people you could never educate. Others were even worse because they denied it, and they knew was true. Fewe would deny this, admitted it . Mr. Ferencz no remorse. My biggest pain in this whole experience was the absence of remorse. They were sorry for themselves. We also suffered, what else could you expect . The jews brought it on themselves, this was necessary for the good of the world. This was the sort of sentiment, almost universal. It would be unfair to those few people who felt otherwise and try to do what they could to help. I do not want to paint a whole nation or people with one brush. It was so widespread. In my trial, one had the decency to try to commit suicide, unsuccessfully, unfortunately. He did not ask for clemency. They left him there to the end. He is the only one who showed any sense of contrition, for which, i admired him, in that sense. You are persecuting me, what else can i do, i took care of orders, it was necessary, and all of that. It is not easy to educate people , but if you do not try, then we are all in danger, everywhere. I figure you have to try. Lets go back to the fairness issue for a moment. Who paid for the Defense Attorneys . Mr. Ferencz they were paid for by the United States, out of occupation funds, i must admit. The place where witnesses were kept were excellent accommodations. And gote said cigarettes, which were in great demand at the time. The defendants were given every possible right of trial. They had to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. They were absolutely fair trials. In i ever get convicted of a crime, i hope i get the same fairness. They were the same procedures in the nure nuremberg trials . Mr. Ferencz they left it to the court themselves to lay down the rules. Hence the judges were all distinguished the british presiding judge, for example they knew what was a fair trial. They had to merge systems. It was necessary for them to matters, which they did well. And nuremberg, we had the benefit of the rulings, and addition, we developed our own. Ules this information is available for the future, if there are future courts. The fact that it did not exist in advance does not mean it was unfair to the defendants. The defendant is the guy on trial. Too much, but it would have never gotten away in an american court. Can you comment on what became emphasized and deemphasized in these trials . Mr. Ferencz it is not so much emphasizing one against the other. The first category that you , crimes against peace, or otherwise known as aggression , that has been perceived for a being the greatest of all crimes because it encompasses all the other crimes. When you commit a crime against peace, the war that follows, invariably involves killing, and destruction everything you can imagine, takes place in a war. A war of aggression is the most serious crimes that any head of state can commit. Efforts were made at that time to bring the kaiser to trial against belgium, for example. This was debated by International Lawyers. The kaiser himself had taken the town of holland, he was known as the woodchopper. The dutch perfused to exit at him because there was no precedents. Thought, all right, in order to not have retroactive justice, they will not try him for the crime of aggression because it had never been declared to be an international crime. They will charge him in the treaty of versailles, which had in 1899. Rred to that was not good enough. He was never put on trial. However, when we got to nuremberg, judge jackson, a look,class jurist, said, the time has come for the law to take a step forward. Witho not charge a person a crime, but he did not know it was a crime at the time it was committed. However, did hitler not know that invading our friendly neighboring state is not a crime. To declare that a crime does not principle, equitable particularly in the light of all of the principles we had. We had the hague agreement, the kellogg pact saying that war was outlawed. Had loopholesl written into them. He said, look, the time has come, and theres nothing unfair , eventrying these guys though aggression was not defined. He said that in his opening statement. He was deliberately taking the law a step forward to keep up with the common sense of mankind. It was based on the long tradition, which had already been established that the medieval notion of warfare does not apply in modern times eerie that was the first and most important principle out of the nuremberg charter. All of these were affirmed by the United Nations general assembly, and also by the tribunal. The second one was crimes against humanity. That connotation had never existed before. The theory behind it was that when crimes reached a certain magnitude that they shot the conscious of humankind. Their crimes not merely against the state, but a crime against all of humanity, and therefore, humanity has the right to be the plaintiff and can bring the charges for that crime. That was also a step forward. It was not an unfair step forward. It was a necessary step forward. If youre going to have a civilized society. The medieval notions, which were perfectly ok, perhaps when a king lived behind a wall, but crimes against humanity were a step forward. There was a restriction put on the International Military that said, we have the right, as lawyers, International Lawyers, to keep people from all over the countrys two examined thecharter, and say whether charter was an exercise in creating new law or a legal instrument we are bound by. It is a legal instrument because enunciates. E and then i will got; into the details. It must also be linked to crimes against peace. That means that a crime of war would not be in the jurisdiction of the court. That is what they held. Some of us involved were shocked at that interpretation. We said, that is wrong, we did not have that in mind, you mean to tell me that hitler killed all the jews, and he is not at war with anyone else, that is not a punishable offense . That is what it said under this charter. We change that. We change that specifically. The control council enacted control Council Law Number 10, which corrected that, and said specifically, crimes against humanity are not linked to other crimes. That meant that if you killed your own nationals, and the shocked the conscience, and it became a crime of thenity, that was confirmed i was pushing on that one so that today, despite the confusion, which exists among many International Lawyers, that fact is it is the legal right of nations that intervene to stop crimes of humanity, and i think it is there duty to intervene to stop times against humanity. That has tremendous consequence for lawabiding international society. And quick lecture. Sorry. [laughter] can you talk some about the review of all these cases, and what happens. Mr. Ferencz yes. Let me clarify what has been a frequent misunderstanding. Talking about the army trials. When the trials were declared to be over, everybody went home, and all was forgiven, and that was the end of that. Those who were still in prison, i dont know if they served a sentence. The trials themselves and did. The subsequent proceedings, under the direction of a general , and there were 12 such trials, had to be reviewed, first by ,eneral clay, who review them and confirmed the sentence. Ohe death sentences had t have a special order written out , directing that the men be executed. They were about 15 or 16 death sentences pending, of which 13 came out in my trial. Mccloy came in as high commissioner to replace general clay, general clay apologized to thisor getting rid of nasty business. There was an appeal pending and he could not act until that was settled. The appeal was rejected, and mccloy had been the assistant secretary of war and world war ii. He was a very distinguished establishment lawyer from new york, originally from philadelphia. Really about the specifics of the trials, or those particular cues. He was familiar with the overall trials, and had in fact supported him when he was assistant secretary of war. He had his Legal Department study all of these records. He did something else. He appointed a threemember panel clemency board to review the cases and make recommendations as to what should be done. The members the principal ck ofer was judge pe new york, who i think was jewish. There was one man from the state department. Were to gouctions over these files. Their specific instructions, which are not generally known, that i dug out later, that were secret at the time, said, you are not to review the correctness of the decisions in any case, that has already been determined, and is binding. The only thing you ought to examine are the personal circumstances of each defendant, such as his health, family condition, or differences in the severity of sentences for each crime so that you would recognize it as being an. Quitable in equitable it was not, and i repeat, not, a part in committee pardon committee, and had known jurisdiction to challenge the validity of any of the decisions in the tribunal of nuremberg. Sat down int munich and start to go over some of these files. I was in munich at the time. I wrote them and said, i know you are here with a very and i said, im thoroughly familiar with all of the trials, and should you require any information or assistance, i am at your service. They wrote back, in a letter, that would go to the national you, butto say, thank no thanks, we will only hear from the attorneys of the defense. At the time and annoyed me, i must say. The panel met, they had a few meetings together, and traveled around, and then they made the recommendations. And the committee issued a report, which you will find in the archives, in which they confirmed 304 of the death four ofs three or the death sentences. The only defendant against whom they had been a judgment forfeiture was the multibillionaire alfred cook. They gave him back all of his assets. That was that. Outcryvote tremendous from the nazi victims and the jewish organizations. Result, mr. Mccloy has not of the the good graces nazi victims or the jewish organizations. Got a that mr. Mccloy bum rap that he was unfairly judge. He was criticized, including in a book that attacked mr. Mccloy and a very harsh way for having released mr. Cook from prison, and giving him back. Thiss condemned as doing in an act of political. Xpediency im absolutely convinced that was not his motive. The reason i convinced is simple. Im a man who looks at the documents. To mccloy about it, i looked at the documents. I found the clemency boards secret. Dation which was we are not reviewing the oridity of these sentence the e judgments. Then, when the clemency board recommended a reduction of sentences of various people, mccloy checked all of those recommendations, and in many cases, mccloy was more harsh than the clemency board had been. , and i said,able this man is trying to do something in an act of political experience it, all he has to do is accept the clemency boards recommendations. They are independent people. Or, he can accept the german argument that death penalties have been outlawed under the constitution, and are no longer applicable, or except the pleas thehe groups who were seating him, and mrs. Mccloy. Instead of that, he ordered four of them to be hanged, which he did not have to do, and he increased the sentences are many others. The man who was determined to win the fate of germany, either he is a fool to do that, or had other motives. I know, having seen him very frequently, that he was torn by i emotion,he had he never ordered someone to be hanged before. It was not an easy thing for him. The statements he made to the germans, and the pressure he put on the germans they paid more than they wanted to pay. [indiscernible] mr. Ferencz it is easy to criticize. It fits into a pattern. It is the manchester pattern, and should be examined in that light. It is a political opinion, not based on fact. Mccloy has also been criticized lines. Bombing the rail in whatt intrude on him i realize was a personal decision of what he alone had to make about the life and death of people. Which i felt should not be the result of political pressure. Theid, look, you realize Jewish Community is in an uproar because of your failure to do that, what is going through your mind . Simple, theis british, who were antisemitic, did not want to because they did not want to divert their bombers from winning the war, which they goal. The primary he said, i have long discussions with the presence jewish advisor in the white house at the time, about the whole issue. They were all strategic reasons. First of all, you would have to bomb them from a height, where was almost inevitable that you would hit the barracks. If you start bombing the barracks of inmates, what will be the response politically from the United States . He said, it was another strategic consideration. Bombing rail lines is a waste of time because they can be repaired immediately. You bomb a few miles of rail lines, so what . It was not going to change anything. In my judgment, he said, and not only my judgment, but the highest level, it was not the thing to do. I said, would you like to talk to them . He said, no. Discussions about the clemency action. I persuaded him that he made a mistake. He said, if i knew then, what i do now, i would have probably done it differently. I said, can i publish that . He said, not as long as i am alive. I will now give information to the holocaust memorial, and you now have it on tape. Every weekend on cspan 3, 40 hours that tell the events that tell our nations history. Our new series, road to the white house rewind, looks back at the campaign of George Walker bush. America, theel last minutes of john f. Ennedys trip to texas then, were backstage with the American History guys. They discussed the film, the birth of a nation and its significance. American history tv, all we can, every weekend, on cspan 3. All weekend, American History tv is featuring syracuse, the matilda gage, one of the nations early feminist. In the became involved National Womens rights convention, thepa