Nuremberg Prosecutor Pledges Millions to Holocaust Museum

Ben Ferencz, the last living prosecutor from the post-World War II trials of Nazi war criminals in Nuremberg, has donated $1 million to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for work to promote global justice and peace, The Washington Post writes in a profile of the 96-year-old lawyer. The annual gift for the Ferencz International Justice Initiative at the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide is renewable for up to $10 million.

Mr. Ferencz was born in a small village in Romania, raised in a New York tenement, and attended Harvard Law School. At age 27, he oversaw the conviction of 22 Nazi officers who led roving death squads known as Einsatzgruppen. For decades afterward, he continued to handle cases involving war victims and atrocities, including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and written extensively on international law.

“I came into the world a poor boy. I want to go out of this world a poor boy,” he said of the Holocaust Museum gift. “I have been trying with my life, ever since I can remember, to try and create a more peaceful and humane world. And I want the money to go for that purpose.”