Seeking Redress for Hitler's Victims

chapter 4 Seeking Redress for Hitler’s Victims: Personal Remembrances Benjamin B. Ferencz, with Michael J. Bazyler and Kristen L. Nelson Introduction Among Ben Ferencz’s multitude of achievements, in his almost 100 years of unflagging service to combating injustice and promoting world peace, the international community knows him best as an icon of Nuremberg. Ben was the Chief Prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen trial, a trial the Associated Press called ‘the biggest murder trial in history.’1 Now in his 99th year, Ben is Nuremberg’s last living prosecutor. There is, however, another aspect to Ben’s remarkable life of which most are unaware. After Nuremberg, Ben stayed in Europe and spent the immedi- ate postwar years fighting for reparations and restitution on behalf of Hitler’s victims, Jews and non- Jews alike. Ben’s wife Gertrude joined him, and all their four children were born in Germany. Ben’s efforts included holding industrialists accountable for the slave labour used in factories during World War ii. His efforts to hold the German industrialists civilly accountable is evocatively recorded in his book Less Than Slaves, first published in 1979.2 For reasons revealed here, the lack of publicity at the time for these restitution efforts was deliberate. In this chapter, Ben now reflects on some of the greatest restitution measures ever to come out of a post- conflict situation, a testament to individuals like him who sought not only criminal justice but also civil justice. Efforts at Holocaust restitution continue to this very day and build upon the achievements that took place after Germany’s defeat in 1945. The current international law obligation to provide redress to victims of genocide 1 Karen Heller, ‘The Improbable Story of the Man Who Won History’s “Biggest Murder Trial,” ’ Washington Post, 31 August 2016. For discussions of the Einsatzgruppen Trial, see e.g., Hila- ry Earl, The Nuremberg SS- Einsatzgruppen Trial 1945– 1958: Atrocity, Law and History (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press 2009); Michael J. Bazyler and Frank Tuerkheimer, Forgot- ten Trials of the Holocaust (New York: nyu Press 2014) 159– 193. 2 Benjamin B. Ferencz, Less Than Slaves: Jewish Forced Labor and the Quest for Compensation (first published by Harvard University Press 1979) [hereinafter Ferencz, Less Than Slaves]. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | DOI:10.1163/9789004377196_006 122 Ferencz, Bazyler and Nelson and other mass atrocities came out directly from the reparation programmes crafted by Ben and his colleagues in the first two decades after the end of the Second World War. The chapter is organised into two parts. The first part, written by Ben, knits together vignettes that take us from the enactment of the Allied Pow- ers’ military occupation restitution laws and the subsequent bulk settlement restitution claims in West Germany in the late 1940s and 1950s, to an historic 1952 “reparations” agreement between West Germany and Israel and its implementation, and to some unintended consequences of postwar restitution efforts.3 Ben’s gift for storytelling and his dry humour leaves us smiling even as he understates the sheer adversity and even danger he faced in achieving successes in the restitution arena. The second part of the chapter brings Ben’s thoughts on restitution to the present day. In early 2019, Michael Bazyler and Kristen Nelson had the privilege to interview Ben, at age 98, about this work on Holocaust restitution. We asked Ben not only for additional reflections on his efforts to obtain restitution for Hitler’s victims after the war but also for his perspective on restitution undertaken after other conflicts. We also sought his views on how modern international judicial mechanisms such as the International Crim- inal Court can promote a culture of post- conflict restitution and restorative justice. Ben possesses the uncanny ability to distill maddeningly complex issues like post- conflict restitution down to a single understandable theme. To Ben, the principle underpinning restitution, if not the actual implementation of it, is simple. A person who commits wrongful acts has a legal, as well as mor- al, obligation to make amends. There are many ways to make amends, with restitution4 being one. This elementary principle of tort law taught to every American law student guided Ben through his work.5 We begin here with Ben in his own words. 3 Ben has written an informal collection of short stories about his life called Benny Stories. They are available in full on his website, http:// www.benferencz.org (accessed June 2019). This first part of this chapter is based on the Benny Stories that focus on restitution. They are Ben’s words, only edited here for length and clarity. A 2019 documentary, Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World of Ben Ferencz (82 minutes), is now out also telling Ben’s story as Nurem- berg prosecutor and tireless advocate for “law not war.” 4 Reparation is a broad concept which encompasses restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. This chapter uses interchangeably the terms reparation, restitution and compensation to describe financial redress. 5 Conversation between Ben Ferencz and Michael Bazyler and Kristen Nelson, 13 January 2019..

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