http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Interview with Benjamin B. Ferencz August 26, 1994 and October 21, 1994 RG-50.030*0269 The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview. The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection PREFACE The following oral history testimony is the result of a videotaped interview with Benjamin B. Ferencz conducted by Joan Ringelheim on August 26, 1994 on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The interview took place in New Rochelle, NY, and is part of the United States Holocaust Research Institute's collection of oral testimonies. The reader should bear in mind that this is a verbatim transcript of spoken, rather than written prose. This transcript has been neither checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy, and therefore, it is possible that there are errors. As a result, nothing should be quoted or used from this transcript without first checking it against the taped interview. The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview. The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection BENJAMIN B. FERENCZ August 26, 1994 Q: Hello, Ben. A: Hello, Joan. Q: Can you tell me where you were born and when you were born? A: Well, I can tell you where I was born. I was born in a little village which doesn't appear on any map in Transylvania. And I was born some times in March, but whether it was the 11th or the 13th or the 15th has been subject to serious debate, and that's simply because there were no records kept. Ah I would certainly have been an incubator baby but they never heard of an incubator. I would certainly have had a doctor there but they didn't have a doctor. I would have been sent to a hospital but there was no hospital. So it's a little difficult for me to be more precise. Q: And what was your name at birth? A: My name was Berell, and as a result of that I had to adopt a middle name at some time in my career, and I had known that I, knew I was known as Benny when we came to America. Q: Uh tell me what your. .name you were born with. A: The name I was given as an infant was Berell, which was the Jewish name. But when we came to America they decided that was not a suitable name, and so I was called Benny. And ah, that time Benny Leonard was a big prizefighter name, and when I got on to school they decided to change that: Benny was abbreviated, so they called me Benjamin. And then when I needed a middle initial and I had none, I took "B." and then they had to say what did that The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview. The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*0269 2 stand for, so I went back to Berell. So by the time I got out of law school I was Benjamin Berell, or Berell, Ferencz. Q: And where were you educated prior to law school? A: Well when we came as immigrants to the United States I was raised in New York. I went through the typical type of New York immigrant lower East Side beginning, and then my father got a job as a janitor -- they didn't call them "supers" in those days -- in an apartment house in Hell's Kitchen, over on 56th Street and Tenth Avenue. And there's where my earliest recollections begin. From there I went to the New York school system, the public schools. My parents were divorced when I was six, so I went out to live with an aunt who lived in Brooklyn and that's where I actually started school, because I was too small and I couldn't speak English, so they wouldn't take me at the school until I was seven. So I was off to a slow start, I was a slow starter. But my education was primarily in New York. I caught up with my education by going to Townsend Harris High School, which was a school for-- with accelerated curriculum. From there I went into City College in New York and from there to Harvard Law School. Q: What did you major in at City College? A: At City College I majored in sociology. And interestingly enough, I was always interested in crime prevention. Maybe that related to my early recollection in a highly dense crime area, Hell's Kitchen. If you look at a map of crimes in the U.S., that was black because there were more crimes committed there than in any place else and that may have stimulated my interest in crime prevention, because there but for the Grace of might have gone I. The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview. The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*0269 3 Q: Were you an only child? A: No, I had a sister, an older sister who was eighteen months older than I. Q: And did you both live with this aunt? A: Yes. When the parents were divorced they had to find their own way and fortunately both remarried and they both lived happily ever after and we all lived happily ever after. My mother and father were related, they were cousins, second cousins who were assigned to marriage at birth and it didn't work out but their subsequent marriages worked out very well and then we all became good friends. Q: What made you go to law school? A: I always wanted to be a lawyer. I don't know where it came from, and I don't know why, because I didn't know any lawyers but somehow I always wanted to be a lawyer and that's why I went to law school. Q: Was there any particular interest in the law? A: Yes, I was interested in crime prevention and I had no interest whatsoever in taxation. I thought "I'm never going to have any money, and I'm not going to defend anybody on a tax matter, I have no interest in corporate law." And so I was immediately involved in criminal law, and did very well. I won a scholarship on that at my first exam at Harvard, and then I The following transcript is the result of a recorded interview. The recording is the primary source document, not this transcript. It has not been checked for spelling nor verified for accuracy. This document should not be quoted or used without first checking it against the interview. The interview is part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's collection of oral testimonies. Information about access and usage rights can be found in the catalog record. http://collections.ushmm.org Contact [email protected] for further information about this collection USHMM Archives RG-50.030*0269 4 went to work under one of these student aid programs for a professor of criminal law and criminal administration, Professor Sheldon Glueck at Harvard, who was the leading authority in the field of juvenile crime. And that had an important influence on my later career. Q: When you were in college, the War had started? A: No, the War started when I was in law school. I recall the December 7th when Pearl Harbor I'm talking about the United States involvement in the War. The War was on in Europe, but the United States involvement began when I was at Harvard. And I remember the day when everybody went down to--to enlist. Q: Were you conscious of National Socialism, what it was doing in Germany prior to going to Harvard while you in college? A: Oh yes I was, very much so, but there was then a large movement to stay out of the War during the early years, an anti-War protest movement.