Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories 20151128

Who were scenting us out did not have the foggiest idea what we were supposed to do. We knew we were supposed to do something connected to war crimes trials, but as an attorney i knew the rules required. Of course, i knew that what constitutes admissible evidence in a court of law, and we were trying, of course, to collect that kind of evidence to make the convictions hold up. How did you make up these claims . Mr. Ferencz we had to improvise as we went along to we didnt have a regular courtroom where you could call in a witness and examine him with a secretary present and someone else crossexamining or securing his rights. Testimony from friendly witnesses. We had taken affidavits from them. If it was from a hostile witness, we would interrogate him privately in order to see if we could ascertain the truth. When we reach the point where without we had ascertained the truth, we asked him to write it out in his own hand. And usually broaden an officer to witness that. Depositiona separate on a more favorable circumstances. And that was the evidence we then used. What was the difference between you and track in terms of technique or writing reports . Mr. Ferencz jack was a much more stable fellow, i would say. He was more cautious in his approaches. But he was more exuberant in his descriptions. When he would come upon the typical scene, he was a these statistic beast gods were murdering the people in cold blood and it was outrageous and a violation of every act of human decency. And i would have to say, look, jack, we are just preparing a legal document. Accusedr to them as the , you dont refer to them as the dirty basket. [laughter] and you dont describe anything in graphic terms, which would prejudice the you just described the facts. The facts will speak for themselves. We had a lot of fun on that. We were good friends. But we had a different approach. Also and some of our interrogation methods. You were doing this for the first few months or you [indiscernible] mr. Ferencz it wasnt every day. We didnt get back to the to report every day. We would come back and he would compare and i would compare. What do you do yesterday . Oh, boy, i got this guy or i did that with that. Then the written reports themselves we would have to prepare more carefully. Wasnt also very somber between the two of you . Was it also very somber between the two of you . Mr. Ferencz it was an somber in the sense that we never left. It was not a laughing matter. We didnt take this lightly, either of us. But somehow it was just getting the job done. And there were light moments as well. How did you prioritize the work . Mr. Ferencz totally haphazard. If he was busy on something, i would take the next case that came in and went out on that one. Usually these were allied type cases or atrocities of killing of hostages in different towns. Uncovered,e had been and he would go out and take one case i would go out and take the other one. And we would both come back. If we happen to be in the office at the same time, we would compare notes. You said earlier that you thought the military tribunal [indiscernible] yes, becausewell, they were in the nature of military commissions. Based upon the Army Standards of courtmartial, the general guide , because they didnt have any general standards. They were not trying to create principles. They were dealing with war crimes. Were crimes were prohibited in the manual of military conduct. And a new that a were crammed with devastation beyond military necessity. It was rape, pillage, plunder. These were things that for many thes had been quantified as rules of warfare, but they didnt do with questions like aggressive war being crime. This came later with the tribunal and were generated by the fact that people, like general jackson, as well as other judges and lawyers who are represented on that, these were people who were familiar with it and brought concepts, whereas in the army, it was just like another g. I. Trial when you bring in the accused, he is represented by another officer or another individual, and the judges happen to be Army Officers who are available to hear the case. Would you describe the incident that happened to [indiscernible] mr. Ferencz well, there were men see there were many incidents. I suppose you are referring to a particularly dramatic one, which i have mentioned in other contexts. Coming into camp was always chaotic. The bodies were strewn all around the place. The inmates had captured the germans and were busy beating them or killing them. And people were dying all around. And what i would do as a matter of procedure, i would immediately try to seize the records. And every cap had a writing office camp had a writing office. I would immediately go there and try to find out who was in charge there and sees whatever would be relevant for war crimes prosecutions. And when i came to it, there was an inmate to their who was a there was an inmate there who was a scriber, a favored position, and he said, oh, i have been waiting for you. I recall going out with him to the electrified fence and his taking up a box of records, which he had kept. And those records were records men, the the ss identification cards, who had entered that camp and had left the camp. It had their photograph on it, it had their identifying numbers and addresses, date of birth, thinks of that kind. And he was supposed to destroy it. He didnt do that. Which meant that every time he saved one of those records and there were hundreds of them he put his life in jeopardy. And he was ready to do that hoping and knowing that when the there would be a day of retribution. And he saved those records for that day. To me, it was a reflection of human hope and confidence and faith. Courage, whichd was very dramatic and moving for me. And there was another incident, which happened a few weeks ago. I never knew who that man was i admired his courage and his faith. But i never knew who he was. But when i wrote about that in my book, i said he was a man who i didnt know. Then a few weeks ago, i received a letter from a professor at the university of paris, professor pike, who had written a book and in that book, he had described i think the book was called the servants [indiscernible] he had described how communists had gone to spain and had fought on the side of liberating forces. And when they were defeated by franco, they had fled into france. When the germans occupied france , the germans seized them and sent them to the camps to be killed or worked to death. One of those persons was in the service of stalin, according to the book. It was the man who headed me those records. And professor pike identified him and identified him by name. And identified another man in the camp who sent regards who is now in france who had been also collecting and hiding the death books registering exceptional deaths which took place in the camp, with even names of all the person to have been killed by unusual means. And those files were also turned over to somebody on behalf of the commanding third general of the commanding general. And that is how i signed most of my receipts, but i asked if i could get a copy of that record, which the man had kept with him all those years. Here we have a coincidence coming out of the blue, the identification of the men who saved those records and one of his close buddies. Lets go to after the war crimes. Presumably, you are going to come back home. What happened . Mr. Ferencz as the nuremberg trials wind down, i was engaged into activities in two activities. One was turning our records over to the germans in the hopes and expectations that they would continue with the war crimes trials. Who were engaged in killing jews for two years every day, and we only tried 22 of them. Rest . At about the we had records. We knew who they were, where they had been, and in all of the other 12 subsequent trials had many residual fallout. So we set up at nuremberg what we called a special products projects division. The object was to turn those files over to the germans, and we negotiated with the various german prosecuting agencies to see if they would take those files and act on them. In addition to that, we were trying to publish the records of the nuremberg trials. I was engaged in that as an editor at the very beginning, and i think my wife was also working on that. We also had a complete german text, which was never published, unfortunately. The army decided it would be too expensive and had no useful purpose, so they next it at the last moment nixed it at the last moment. I was wrapping this up and looking forward to going back to a normal life. From a, i had a visit man who was the general counsel. This was the Jewish Organization that was most active, the only one at the time, in assisting the dps in the caps on in the camps and assisting the jews. And their headquarters was in paris. Said what iunsel come to paris and they would like to talk to me. I came to paris and he said, look, we have a problem and we would like you to help us with that problem. And the problem is this the Jewish Organization had succeeded in persuading the use of government to enact a law providing for the restitution of property which had been stolen or confiscated or taken by the rest from the jews or others because the law covered not only jews. And one provision of that law was that the unclaimed property which had been taken from those who were no longer there to file a claim should also be restored. Normally, if a person dies heirless, the property passes to the state. But there is a principled law that says you may not be the beneficiary of money unlawful act. Any unlawful act. The state responsible can hardly be the recipient of the he irless property. The only government was the military government when they surrendered. The United States was responsible for the military governments law in the u. S. Occupied zone of germany. And the military Government Law number 59 said that a Successor Organization shall be appointed to recover the heirless jewish property. And the Jewish Organization, which succeeded in getting that into law, didnt know where to begin. Said, we would like you to be the guy who sets this up. You know your way around germany. You know what happened to the jews. I was then highranking with the u. S. Army, and this was all military occupation at the time. We dont think anything will come of it. But we have a moral obligation to try. And, of course, we dont have any money to put into this. We need our money for relief of the survivors. We have enough to pay your salary for six months, which was 6,000 or 7,000 altogether. I said, well, i will talk to my wife, we are getting ready to go home. We had been in germany for about two years, much longer than we had been expecting. I disgusted with my good wife, gertrude. And she said, look, it is true, you know this business better than anybody else. They said it might take two years. She said i know you would only take one year. So, all right, we will stretch it a little bit longer. So i agreed to stay. And i designated myself the director general of the jewish restitution Successor Organization, knowing that nothing would impress the germans more than being a director and the general, so that is how it began. What was the basis of the organization . Mr. Ferencz i was hired for that job in august 1948. And we had an immediate major crisis. The law required that all claims be submitted by the end of that year, the end of december 1948, ahead of our three month, four staff locates the property, submits the claims on longform because this was the first step in a long judicial process. The first thing i did was recognize that was impossible. So as soon as i agreed to undertake the job, i resigned from nuremberg, and i went to see the commanding general, who was general clay, the general for all u. S. Forces in germany. I had known general clay from before, as i had been head of the branch in berlin when we were collecting evidence for the trials. And iwent up to see him said i have this problem and i need an extension of the law. I said i cant locate all the confiscated jewish property, hundreds of thousands of properties of all kinds all over germany, in three months with no staff, no money. And he said, no, i dont want to extend the law because the sooner we get this problem over with the better off we are going to be. This will be a thorn in germany side. And i dont want to extend the restitution law. I said, ok, i will tell you what we are going to do. We will make a deal. I will try to get it done and i will only come back to you if it is impossible. But i will try. But in order to get it done, i need money. First of all. I need staff. He said, didnt the organization know that when they wanted to get this written into the law that it would cost money . I said, you cant ask the Jewish Organization, which are now spending every penny they can race to save the lives of these dp is and to rescue them gps dps and rescue them. The United States army was running on occupation funds. We use the money to pay for whatever we need. He said you know i cannot get occupation funds. The russians are going to have to agree. They will never agree to using money for private property claims. I dont think the french will agree, i dont even think the british will agree, and i cant do it on my aunt. I said, well, i have another proposition. Let me the borrow the money from the american let me borrow the money from the american restitution. He said, ok, if you say it is legal, i can do it. Go down and talk to my finance man and tell him it is ok. I want to get this problem over with. So i went down and i talked to him. This guy in charge of finance. I said i have just come from the general and we are setting up a restitution project and i did enough funds to get this thing growing. Kssaid i need one million mar. That was a hell of a lot of money. And i signed here. I signed promising to repay. And with that money, i immediately went out and hired staff, german investigators. Reauthorized cause from the army, using my and sent investigators into every registry in germany with instructions to copy down the names of any jewish name transferred property since 1933. Very often, the germans have been very helpful to us and it stamped a and had stamped a j on the Jewish Properties. The instructions were, you bring it in and we are going to rush to get these claims out on a big complicated four. And then we set up i set up in nuremberg, a club occupied by latvians that were mostly drivers. I knew the latvians were very busy killing jews before they retreated with the germans and were captured by the americans. I needed it for restitution. I moved to them out. I move my furniture from the courthouse in nuremberg to this last fan club and we set up their a big hall, set up there a big hall, a dance hall. And 24 hours a day, we filed claims. Field, came in, from the the investigators came in and brought the claims in. We had secretaries sitting there typing. I took an eight hour shift, so kagan was my deputy. Handled weiss, he the third shift. And about the day the filing of the filing deadline, we loaded all the claims into u. S. Ambulances and there was a claim center where we had to file the claims. We drove it up to the claim center and filed, i think, 173,000 claims for 173,000 pieces of property. And i called up general clay and i said we dont need an extension, we found everything. Filed everything. So that is only the beginning of the process. The system which was set up was that a person who felt that he had been forced to sell his property or had confiscated was authorized to file a claim. That and then went to a restitution agency, special judicial type agency. It would not really courts. To deal only with these claims. And they would hear the counterclaims because the people who bought it would say, hey, wait a minute, i paid fair value forward because my friend was the neighbor next door. I wanted to help him escape so i gave him money and the property wasnt even with that. He escaped and he sent me three letters from brooklyn. And he didnt file a claim because he felt fairly treated. Who are you to come here and claim this property . Or they would claim they bought the property and it was bombed out. There was a mortgage on the property. I paid off the mortgage. Who is going to give me back the mortgage money . Or there were two or three claims. Some other person said they had bought it in between and it had passed through several hands. It was a complicated Legal Process which began. And if anybody was not satisfied with the decision of the restitution agency, they could go to the Restitution Court that was part of the regular judicial system. Toy could file an appeal another branch of the judicial system, the german courts. And there was a final Judicial Court of appeals. Sat on the court of restitution of appeals, and they would hear the legal arguments and the factual arguments and all of these cases before rendering a final binding decision. So this long Legal Process began. For that, we needed lawyers. When we got the property back, we needed people who would manage it, we needed people who were prepared, we needed businesses which had to be managed and run. And for all of this, we had to train people. It had never happened before in history. And we couldnt trust the germans. We had to be very careful. I had access to all the nazi party files. We hired nobody who didnt pass the security check, which means we had a very limited selection. So it began, and there was a very interesting Legal Process to try to create precedence. The legal questions came up very early on. Two or three to show you how history might have been quite different with a few wrong decisions. Wasfirst key issue we had at what rate of exchange do you have to repay . The principle of law is simple. If a person enters into a contract under diress, when the that diress is removed, he has the option of undoing the contract, but he has to give back what he got. These are the principles of law, which i learned at harvard, and they are not something invented by military government. Was that whenned the property was transferred in 1937 or 1938, lets assume the 100,000wner received marks for it. By 1949, that no longer existed. It was a Deutsche Mark in the Deutsche Mark was converted at a ratio of 10 1. Said, wait a minute, i gave you 100,000 reichsmarks. If the jewish owner had been required to give back 100,000 reichsmarks, they would say the property is not worth it. 100,000 Deutsche Marks, which was an awful lot of money. It would have been completely different. And i had a lot of problems with this. I took this case to the court a restitution of appeals before they get in the program. And the issue was who bears the burden of the laws . Is at the victim, the jewish victim . The victim of nazi persecution . Or is it the nazi or the german who acquire the property . To my mind, the risk of the currency devaluation should not rest with the victim of the duress. It should rest with the victim who acquired the property, just as if he kept his money in the bank, it would have been devalued. And that opinion prevailed. If the opinion had gone the other way, there would have been no Restitution Program in germany. I would give you another case. The german jews had mostly flat. They were organized in what is called congregations in germany. Every town had their own congregation. These are legal entities in germany. Anybody who is a member of a congregation has to pay taxes to the state, and the state then supports the congregation out of these funds. The German Jewish congregation had all been dissolved. The property had been saved. The property consisted of schools, cemeteries, large buildings, and the previous owners were scattered all over the world. They were in israel, argentina, shanghai, wherever they could find refuge. But some small groups had reconstituted themselves and came into munich. Very few of them had been members of that congregation before. The came from poland, they came from russia, they came from other places and they reestablish themselves. Some of them, having been forced to survive using all kinds of means, were less than the most honorable or credible people. But some of them were a bunch of crooks, as confirmed by them being arrested from time to time on various charges. And they said, we are the owners. Look, we set up a new congregation, we are claiming restitution of the property. And i said, hold on, you are not claiming restitution because i am the Successor Organization who has designated our military Government Law. Entitled to theey said,we are congregation. Long story short i argued that case and i remembered quite dramatically, because i addressed the three american judges. I said may please the court, i stood on this spot, literally the same spot, and argued against the nazis who had murdered the jews. I never thought i would stand here and argue against the Jewish Community. But i have to. Those who are entitled cannot speak for themselves. Those who are entitled were scattered everywhere. A small itself proclaimed group was not subject any kind of controls. I won the case. Some of those who argued against me and that in jail. If that case had gone the other way, all the Jewish Properties in germany, which had brought which had belonged to congregations would have disappeared. So we had several cases like that, which were decisive on how this program was to be carried out. We had good luck. More than good luck we were on the right side. And being able to carry up the program for the recovery of thousands of pieces of unclaimed jewish property i dont want to run too long, but i think it may be of historic significance. In the end we surrendered and did it and an interesting way. Because of these problems of currency conversion and because the germans resented having given up their homes they had invested all kinds of things and there were no substitute. Housing was in great demand. There was resentment against this strange organization, which comes along and insists on taking the property back and only paying a small fraction to what had been given to the property. Very often what had been taken from them discriminatory taxes. It got to be a very bitter business, and it was generating antisemitism in germany, which didnt need any and tysons antisemitism generated in the immediate postwar years. The jews were being moved out of germany from the camps to israel. Which itself was destitute. There was no place to put them. They were prefabricated. No water, but in open fields. This was a situation that called for immediate action, i had to generate money at once by every possible means. So i had to devise new techniques. Let me give you a specific example of the type of problem. There was a case where a woman had acquired the home of a jewish neighbor. I dont remember if it was 1937 or 1938. Probably earlier than that. No claim had been filed except for the jewish Success Organization. We asserted the claim, she made the usual arguments. I was hoping my jewish neighbor, what do you want, who are you . We said nevermind. We are going to give you back 1 10 of what you paid. It so happened she was the aunt of an American Army general who not only was an American Army general, he happened to be the commanding general of the district in germany that was bombed where he lived. He call me up and said what do you think you are doing . My aunt is not a nazi. She helped her jewish neighbor. A claim not file because they were grateful to her. How do you, filing a claim and dementia gets out of her house . And you are offering her 1 10 of what you paid for it. I said, sir, im here to carry out the law. That is what is provided in the law and i think the law is correct. I negotiated with your aunt and i negotiated with others. We try to be fair in our settlements and adhere to the and not to adhere to the last drop of blood and pound of flesh. I will simply carry out the law, which is a military Government Law. Thats what i intend to do. Please advise accordingly. John mccloy is in the High Commission of germany. Mr. Mccloy got on the phone with me. He is raising holy hell. He says you are doing much worse than the nazis. All she did was help her jewish friend. He is very distressed. I said mr. Mccloy, as a good lawyer you know well that the transaction in 1938 was a duress transaction and avoidable at the voidable avoidable at the option of the person whose property was taken. I exercise that option as i must to require the transaction be rescinded. It is consistent with my notions of equity and justice, as i am sure it is with yours. He said i guess that is. He said i will call up the general and tell him. That is what happened. Eventually we settled. We had this problem thousands of times again and again. It not only took time, but we are not getting the money we needed for these urgent tasks of saving lives. I decided to take another approach. And that was to try to sell these claims to the German Government. Global settlements. I went to the finance ministry and different german states. I said look, we have this problem, we are generating a lot of antisemitism. We have to solve this problem. The way i suggest we solve it is reassigned the claims to you, so we are not an official ares by way of the not a beneficiary by way of you need to make that sacrifice to maintain peace in your life. The first suggestion we made was with a big palace near frankfurt. That was the first settlement. , long million marks before the haitian negotiations. I think it was 19 long before negotiations, 1950 or 1951, in which the state agreed. O pay and then we did that with the other lender and we went on. We had a very difficult problem. A mann in charge was whose name he will find in your holocaust archives. A very moral and righteous human being, he had a very strong sense of justice and was very help will in arguing the appeal on behalf of slave laborers. I had Great Respect for him. Said, i will not accept it. He said you will carry out the law as it was intended to be. He said i will not be able to carry it out that way for political reasons. It is important justice be done. You do it. I said, half pity. I cant do it. Antisemitism it was causing. He said, you do it. I never settled. We settled everyplace else. This is an illustration of a difficult political problem and an economic problem as well. And then the states went on for many years. By and large it was a fair and sensible arrangement as i look at it now in retrospect. It was way was a way to get the gun out on a legal path. It was found to be insurmountable. It had many such problems. Let me tell you another problem, which was a very fascinating problem in a way. The problem is what do you do about jewish cemeteries . I know nothing about the Orthodox Jewish rituals. I was not going to touch that subject without strict guidance who are responsible a strict guidance over who are responsible. Under the restitution law the Jewish Communitys work on. They all had their own cemeteries, every congregation had a local cemetery. Sometimes it was a significant plot of land. So i set up a council headed by the chief rabbi of israel at the time. There was another german rabbi who represented the jewish communities in germany. These three were to give me the guidelines of what could be done with a Jewish Cemetery. My instructions were we provide strictly is we abide strictly to these rules. Once a Jewish Cemetery always a Jewish Cemetery. You cant do anything with a land in which somebody is buried. You must leave it lying there. All of the Jewish Cemetery had been desecrated. If there is an area where there are no bodies, it it can be fenced off and it can be sold, providing it is not sold for a profane purpose. What is a profane purpose . You have to look in the comment talmud. A hospital is not a profane purpose. Gambling casino certainly is. We had to know what was being sold and for what purpose it was being sold. Let me just take a minute or two for a very amusing story. We had a situation of a cemetery in the old town. And on catholic town. There was a Jewish Cemetery. A man wanted to use part of the the social democratic mayor wanted to use part of the cemetery, which was in the center of town by the time the years had passed. It was a hundred years ago. He said he wanted to use it as a customhouse. Right on the east german border. I inquired with the rabbinical council, as i did very strictly, and they said customhouse . That is ok. I happened to be in new york when i got a dramatic telegram. They are building a customhouse and digging up bones. The contract was clear. There was a certain area where they were going to have a little Memorial Park next to it. The cemetery had been desecrated completely, but we are going to have a park there with a plaque, and the customhouse was built in the area on the blueprint where there were no graves. That created a major problem. I sent a telegram to seek an immediate injunction, stop mobile all building, i am on my way home. When i got back to nuremberg or frankfurt at the time, i said how far has it come . They had already put about four stories on the building. A big building. A one portion was over the grave site. I you cant do that. I said you cant do that. I said tara down, you cant do that. The Jewish Community came to me, you cant tear that building down. Life will be unbearable. I said what are you thinking, its a clear breach of contract, tear the building down. Its their problem. I said let me consult with the council. They went into a meeting at a conference and finally came up with a solution. You may not have anything on a cemetery except for a jewish prayer house. A big building. We may not know much about engineering. Better look some more. And then some genius came up with a solution. You have to build the prayer house under the building. So that the building rests on top. So that is an idea. There is nothing that says the you cannot build a building on top of a prayer house. That was an idea. So anybody who ever views this tape, i reckon they go check it recommend they go check it out. In a corner of the Customs House there is a small room, which is a prayer house, built in accordance with specification and laid down in israel with inscriptions on the wall, with stainedglass windows. There is room for a torah. That was built under the Customs House. It is the worlds most unknown, unused synagogue that ever existed. I went to check on that 10 years later and i started with a Customs House. You turn to the right three blocks. I want to see the synagogue in this building. They said this building is the customhouse. I said there better be a synagogue in this building. Then they call somebody upstairs and they said oh yes, they took me down to the basement and kick some boxes away. He opened the door and said this is what you are looking for . I said that is it. I said has anybody ever used this . He said no, never. Keep on doing it. Go to visit the Customs House and check out for me, they are bound to do that forever. Let me tell you another story about forever. How long is a cemetery to be maintained . One of the things we worked out as they would be responsible for the maintenance of the jewish cemeteries. Under german law a cemetery is only maintained for 20 years. Every town has their own cemetery and every resident is entitled to be buried in that cemetery. Germans are very orderly people. After 20 years they are required to take away the tombstone. Saves money, saves ground, and some emotional sentiment. As we are reaching the end of the 20 year period, i said now you take care of the cemeteries. Jewish law requires a cemetery to maintain forever. Forever costs money. You have to cut the grass. It costs money. We are not going to pay that. Why should we treat you better than we treat our own . It got to be a very emotional argument, a very dramatic argument. The germans were finally persuaded to accept the jewish ritual. They do maintain the cemeteries in perpetuity. This was also part of the restitution. I convinced them by slamming on table the bones i brought from me i brought with me from auschwitz. Tell me about the cultural restitution. Since the jewish restitutions jewish Success Organization was authorized to claim all unclaimed jewish property, it also recovered many thousands of jewish cultural objects, which had been assembled by the germans. ,hey collected torah scrolls tons of jewish ceremonial object taken from all the occupied territories. Rosenberg was the nazi ideologue named in his honor. They were to go sees all jewish cultural objects. The nazis had various plans for them. These were eventually assembled in a big warehouse under the custody of the United States army, and they turned it over to the jewish restitution Success Organization. Our first goal was to try to locate the owners. If there was a kiddush plate, which i do find out where the man was or if it came from a congregation that still existed. We did the same, incidentally, with individual properties of restitution. We are called the equity procedure of getting the property back to real owners. To our first goal, restore to the rightful owners. Usually you couldnt tell. So the next goal was to try to distribute them wherever they were needed for jewish reconstruction. A separate entity with set up by the Jewish Organization, called jewish cultural reconstruction. And the professor of Columbia University was a member of our board of directors. And what of the persons who first came to germany to help guide us with what to do with these things. I was a young fellow and i did not know enough about cultural life and germany. We set up these cultural reconstructions. Then we broaden experts from israel. A gentleman who came in from the museum in israel to help us with all of the crowns and all of the objects. We also had people restoring them. We had a school of scribes working in paris. I learned a scroll can be repaired. The scroll has to be buried. All of which we followed very precisely. I was very insistent on that. The law was laid down by the councils and we dont vary that in any way. It was strictly to be observed. And they repaired those, which could be saved. And this council could advise where they were needed. I learned that a scroll can be prepared, but if the scroll has we returned them when it was damaged, and in the end, we still had tons of broken silver, knives, forks, dishes, plates, all kinds of bits and scraps. The question is, what do we do with that . I was very careful, and i found a jewish silversmith in london and i said, all right, we will send it to them. They cannot be repaired, we cannot find the owner, nothing can be done with it, so we will smelt it down and give the proceeds to jewish charity. I thought i was being a very clever. ]i went to the board of directors in new york where we had our annual meetings and i went to the great details and i was feeling a very cocky and very proud of myself and i said that we had gotten 50,000 dollars or Something Like that from the silver scraps that we sent off to the silversmith and the goldsmith brothers in london, and they smelted them down, and they sent us a proceeds from london, and we give them to the charitable organizations, whereby the first person raised his hand and he was less elderly then, he is still living, and he said, mr. Proceeds from london, and we mr. Benjamin ferencz, you took these holy objects and you sent them to a crematorium . I knew from that question that i was cooked and i tried to explain it the best that i could that it was not really a crematorium, it was our way of trying to carry out our assignment and we realized that the assets could be benefiting those who survived, and i dont think he beat came i dont think he forgave me for that, that we became very good friends after the years passed. There was this problem in dealing with a new area that had never been done before. We had paintings in which we had disposed of and there were all kinds of things and it was part of the Restitution Program. [indiscernible] hannah errantt arendt was there for a relatively short. Of time, but knowing the jewish communities of germany really well, she was helpful to us in identifying various ceremonial objects, she knew what period they were from, what might it have been from what it might have been from, and let me tell you another story of collections. Among the collections were, of course, many jewish books. There were old jewish books, you know, and they were of great value. The germans had also collected such books, and i mean german universities, german churches, part of their religious studies, and the nazis had picked those of. There were institutions that have legitimately acquired those books and they were quite valuable. One day, a jewish rabbi, a chaplain, i think his name was bernstein, pulled up with an ambulance to the back of one of these archives and selected some of the most valuable jewish books and filled up the ambulance and put them on a ship smuggling immigrants to israel, palestine as it was known. So these were books which had belonged to legitimate german institutions and they had been lawfully acquired, so it was a case of unlawful confiscation. One day i got a call from general mcclay, and he said, benny, youve got to come up, weve got a problem. I have his captain and im about to courtmartial him for stealing German Jewish property. And he said, we have a Restitution Program here and we are restoring property to those from whom it was unlawfully taken, so it doesnt mean you can go off and steel property from the germans and i am going to courtmartial him and i said, dont do that, for god sakes. There are mitigating circumstances coming he thought it was jewish property, he didnt know, i did know, and i said, i will get it back. So i went to israel and he gave me a long list rims about 10 or 12 pages of different books of which i know nothing. So i go to israel and i meet with the government officials there, and i was in contact with contact with the finance mean jack what you mean . We are expected to stay for 10 years. And wefour children decided to resign from his organizations and returned to new york, but i did remain as an advisor for very many years after that. What was life like for you and your family there . Benjamin it was a colonial, cloistered existence, and maybe you should ask my wife to hear what it was like from her point of view. We did recognize, the first we did not fraternize. The first german that i let into my house after living there for seven years was a professor who had walked out of the german delegation as protest against the government but i may tell , you about that when i tell you about the hague negotiations. But it was a very colonial kind of existence, the americans only fraternize with americans, everything was very cheap, fraternized with americans, everything was very cheap, it was like living in india. There were some executions, and before the execution, i said ive received several death threats, and after those death threats, i would take my name off of the door. But it was comfortable in the sense that we could travel. It was a nice country, it had nice mountains, we were young, but it was not a happy place to be. You always felt beleaguered, sort of, you were surrounded by persons who regarded you as a vermin the years before and suddenly, they had never heard of such a thing you as a kind of vermin in the years before and suddenly, they had never heard of such a thing, so nevertheless, they were not unhappy years, but we were determined to leave before the job is really done. Was really done. Did you see black market activity . Benjamin nobody could live in germany without seeing blackmarket activity, everything was run on the black market, i mean, there were rations and you could choose between bread or beer, but there was an official blackmarket in berlin, for example, where in order to attempt to curb the wildlife market, they could bring their stuff to the central black market, it wasnt called that, it was called the exchange, or something. Cigarettes were currencies. People literally worked with you for cigarettes. It was very grim at that point. Was blackmarket helpful . Benjamin it is hard to answer that question. I did have a discussion with dr. Schwartz in paris about that. It is interesting you should raise it. The jews would receive an equivalent of care parcels receiving various things that they needed, sugar, coffee, clothing, material to make things. It was sending in mostly cigarettes, because that was the most negotiable item, and i discussed that with joe shorts the joe schwarz, from a moral point of view. I said, and dont you think it would be better to set up soup kitchens . He said, no. He said, i think, first of all we get much more bang for our buck this way. This is the currency of trade and it is cheap and you can buy a lot with it. Secondly, he said, it is an outlet for their emotions, and this will take them out of this atmosphere. My concern was that their moral standards would be destroyed by engaging in illegal activities and that there was no respect for the law. I couldnt persuade him at the end of it, and in retrospect, he was probably right, because people, in order to survive, legality was irrelevant. They did whatever they had to do in order to survive. In that kind of an atmosphere, the thing that i had to do, since i was a lawyer, in notions of strict legality, it was unrealistic and perhaps unfair and i was overly concerned about that. Anyway, the blackmarket did in time disappear and i am not sure that it did any big harm anywhere, but it changed things, a lot of german goods were exchanged for cigarettes. But i dont think it had any permanent significance. Deed did you witness any [indiscernible] benjamin oh, of course. I had no personal relatives of my own in the camps, but some cousins of my wife were there, and the conditions were very rough. But not as compared to the concentration camps. But everyone was very eager to recreate their lives. They were remarrying, any survivor was remarrying and raising children as quickly as they could, a defiance of that hitler was not going to succeed. What was done to help the victims with their own injuries . Benjamin that seems to me to be perhaps the most important or next to the most important of ways in dealing with holocaust problems. Holocaust begins with war, war is a form of holocaust. The next phase is to hold accountable those who brought it on with the war crimes trials. The third phase is trying to restore what had been taken, that is the Restitution Program, and the fourth phase is the victim, what about the victims . In the courtrooms you think that the punishment is given out, but it is not over. Criminals can be punished or killed, but it doesnt make a big difference in terms of deterrence, but what do you do about those who survived . This was a problem that was not addressed by military government, except in the very crudest way in seeking compensation in the time at them the camp. They suffered all kinds of losses. If you are approached it legally, then it required a much more extended approach. Do you want me to tell you about that now . I will to you about how it began and how it was approached. The notion that the individual survivor was an old notion. It was quite obvious to anyone who was concerned with the subject people had begun to write about it in israel and the United States about compensating victims of personal injuries. Germany was eager to reenter the family of nations. There is a devout catholic who had been saved by jewish friends when the not these were trying to drive the man out as mayor of cologne. He was very eager to find some way in reaching out to the jewish communities. He was able to do that through a banker in london. He established first contacts with the German Government, this is the postnazi government, saying, let us try to arrange something. They were involved very early close, the banker had been involved in a very different that a quay and the first question was, are the german serious in a way that was very the banker had been involved in a way that was very serious, and the first question was, are the germans serious . There was the idea that you shall not steal, and they would kill the victims and get away with it, and that was the same thing with compensation, and Restitution Programs. What compensation is payment for individual injuries sustained. But the individual had to clear it with his government, which was conservative. Socialists were more inclined and they themselves had been nazi victims. The first thing that was necessary was to test their sincerity. He proposed a compensation of one billion marks, and they did not know what it was, because it was so huge, but he was able to give them assurances that he would have the negotiations be serious and eventually, the agreement was reached that we would and negotiations. At the negotiations would have three parties, one, the German Government, and by that i mean the west German Government. The east German Government never answered. Communications were sent to them, but this only began after germany was restored to its sovereignty around 1951. Before then, there was no government to deal with. The agreement was reached that a negotiation would be entered into on neutral territory. No Jewish Organization wanted to go into germany. I said there were three parties. The state of israel was a party, and at the time, the state of israel was a new state and there were a lot of enemies against it. Israel never purported to speak for jews who were not in israel. Who would speak for them . Both jews were not there most jews were not there, polish jews, german jews, russian jews. They had a genius to put this together as a conference on jewish german claims against germany. It began as a conference and it kept the name conference, and it consisted of a collection of the leading Jewish Organizations in the world. It had central british fund, jews of argentina, the jews of france, they all came together and formed a new york operation and they were going to be the third negotiating parties so that the germans were negotiating with all of the choose in the world. The negotiations would take place in a secret destination in a neutral country. To give you some idea for the feel of it, there was a big outcry in the Jewish Community, particularly in israel, that it was a betrayal of jewish honor. You are selling my mother, you are trying to get money for blood, those who do this will be betrayed by the germans, and there is no good german except for a dead german, we dont want their lousy money, we dont want anything to do with them, you are a betrayer of the jewish people. There was a busy engagement of smuggling jews into palestine at that time, and that group felt strongly about that, to the extent that they did send a bomb in in in antigerman in a german encyclopedia, and the bomb exploded and killed two policemen. They had sent a letter bomb to the head of the german delegation, but to give you a little closer feel as to what this is like, the preparations for this meeting took place at the grove in her house in london for about a week grovner house in london. I was there as claims counsel because i knew about restitution and i knew about what happened and all of that, so i was a expert an expert. I can think of so many better experts, there were learned international lawyers, but we had a crew that was working in london trying to prepare the Opening Statements seen what we are asking for . Since my wife and i had parachuted out of a plane into berlin from a recent time before, i was not eager to fly to her ever the Meeting Place was supposed to be. I said, look, tell me, i will get there by train. I was told when we left there, you will be given an envelope and dont open it until you get to the taxi, and when you get there, open it and follow the instructions. We were under the security of the israeli secret service, and i opened it up and it said proceed to holland. I thought it was a strange way to go to brussels, and there i was checked out at customs and i came in and they looked at my passport and they said, just a moment, and they had some men come out of the back room and he said come with me and i sat in a big, black buick and off we drove into the night. And after a day and a night i said, excuse me, can be can you tell me who are you and where are you taking me . He said, i am the duchess secret police and im taking you to a secret meeting site. When dawn was breaking, we pulled into an old castle, and it seemed to me that i had seen ss men with police dogs there, and i thought that the group had been executed and i thought i had walked into a trap and that there was a nazi underground as well, but as i looked at it a little more closely, when i realized i saw the s as police, it was the dutch police t he they were the same type uniform. It was not a trap. I came in and checked it at the front desk, and the castle had been converted into a firstclass hotel, and i checked into the hotel. I was told to open the drawers, open note drawers no drawers, no doors, and there is a policemans station on every floor, and if there is anything strange, immediately alert them. The german delegation came in and the leader received a normal envelope would have envelope that had black powder at the bottom with a detonator. It would kill anybody to had it in his hand or anybody nearby, and that was intercepted by the dutch police, the israeli police, i think it was. We were told, because folk, be careful because we knew that a member of a gang had entered brussels looking for us and was waiting in holland. They had been tracking him. So it was filled with a lot of apprehension. There was a plane coming in with two is really delegates that had crashed over frankfurt, and it crash landed but it had killed everyone on the plane. We dont know if there was any connection and i dont know to this day, it may have just been an unfortunate coincident, and i hope it was, but it was an area of high tension. When we appeared, there were people marching in the streets, threatened to kill anybody whos connected with the negotiations. So that was the way it began and what we were trying to do was to create the sense of justice from the injuries, and the german coin a term that literally meant make good again, but you cant make anything good again. I felt there was a moral obligation as well as a legal obligation when you injure someone, there is a duty for you to try and make recompense as best you can and try to heal them as s2 can, and that continues to this day as best as you can, and that continues to this day. No one had ever done this before. No one had ever sat down after a war to provide individual compensation to the victims of not only that war, but the persecutions related to it. To work out the principles and set up the machinery and to put it into legislative paths and to let it be decided on an enormous scale, i mean, millions of claims, jews and nonjews. Jews were the primary targets, and the gypsies were close behind on the knotty extermination programs, but there were very many other victims, including german victims, and it would be a mistake to disregard them, and we didnt disregard them. Working out the compensation laws, it would indemnify them, and they all have equal rights under the law, jews and nonjews. [indiscernible] benjamin let me give you some idea of the legal principles involved. First, what do you ask for . We had global sums in mind, and we thought of 3 billion marks going to israel to help cover some of the costs that they had incurred in absorbing the immigrants of not the persecution, trying to rehabilitate them. It was a global amount which at , that time was vital to israel. Germany had no money. Germany was devastated. How do you pay it . It must be paid over a period of 10 to 12 years. The claims was to give 5 million for compensation to the jews outside of israel to help with organizational assistance. Then we had from these payments, incidentally, that is really railroads were billed, the israeli electrical system in germany, and if anyone had been to israel, they know that all of the taxi cabs were built by mercedes, and it was a great help. It is ironic that the state that was dead set on destroying the jews helped to create the jewish state and help it to survive. People like to forget it, and say no, but it is an unfair thing to do. Then, what do you do for the individual . How do you measure . We decided very early on, we were not going to decide anything for loss of life. You dont give 6 billion for the loss of life, but you do take the ordinary principles of law. If a child lost his father, who is his provider . In the provider was a high income, middle income, or low income person, he would be based he would be getting money based on that. If certain portion of the income would be used for that child and it would be used for that child for a certain number of years, and the German Government would pay for it and would pay for it for a limited number of time and there would be a percentage, and how much could they afford to pay, and there is a theme song, we have other obligations to pay. So working out all of these principles of the law, how can we compensate, like an Insurance Company . It was through six months of detailed, acrimonious decisionmaking. American history tv on cspan3 has or days of teacher programming. Today 2 00, president of the society of the honor guard, tomb of the unknown soldier, on the history of the Arlington Cemetery and stories about some of the notable people who are very there. On real america, the cbs fivedayrt on the battle in vietnam with interviews with officers and enlisted men. American history tv all weekend and on holidays to, only on cspan3. All persons having business before the Honorable Court of the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and get their attention. Coming up on cspans landmark cases he demanded to see the paper and to read it, which they grabbed ito so she and a scuffle started and then she picked up piece of paper in her bosom. And very readily the Police Officer put his hand into her bosom and removed the paper. And thereafter handcuffed her. In 1957 the Cleveland Police went after a woman they believed to be harboring is expected bomber and demanded entry. She refused them access without a warrant. Later returning with a document they claimed is warrant they force themselves into the home and search the resident residents. Not finding a bond they confiscated a truck containing trunk containing obscene pictures. She sued after case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. We will examine how this and other Supreme Court rulings transformed practices nationwide. Live monday at 9 p. M. Eastern on seas and, cspan3, and cspan radio. And for background on each case order your copy of the companion book. It is available for 8. 95 plus shipping and cspan. Org l andmarkcases. Announcer American History tv is featuring cspans original series, first ladies. Cspan produced the series in cooperation with the White House Historical association. Through discussions with experts and questions him cspans audience, we tell the stories of americas 45 first ladies. Firstrbara bush on ladies coat this is about 90 first ladies. This is about 90 minutes. Mrs. Bush the answer is, did i feel prepared . Yes, i really did. First of all, i wasnt elected, so it didnt make that much difference. I did notice, though, the difference between being the Vice President s wife and the president s wife is huge because the Vice President s wife can say anything. Nobody cares. The minute you say one thing as president s wife, youve made the news. So that was a lesson i had to learn. Ms. Swain during george bushs presidency, barbara bush used the office of first lady to promote literacy and to raise awareness about aids and homelessness. She also earned her way into the history books. She and Abigail Adams are the only women in our histto