Author and Nuremberg Trials prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz dies, aged 103

Benjamin Ferencz, the author of Parting Words: 9 Lessons for a Remarkable Life, published by Sphere in 2020, has died aged 103.

His son Don confirmed Ferencz, who was the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, passed away peacefully in his sleep on 7th April.

After being at the liberation of several concentration camps, Ferencz’s team uncovered evidence about a previously unknown SS death squad – the Einsatzgruppen – and fought to bring the leaders of it to trial. He was just 27 and the trial was his first case.

A statement from Sphere goes on: “His life story matches this unprecedented performance: as a Jewish immigrant in the slums of New York, he was clever (and wily) enough to make it to Harvard, where he paused his law degree to volunteer to fight in the Second World War – he was among the allied soldiers at the D Day landings. After the Nuremberg Trials, he secured compensation for numerous Jewish survivors of the Holocaust and was part of the founding of the International Criminal Court, which continues its fight to hold the most powerful governments in the world to account for their war crimes.

“Ben was still giving damning interviews about the war in Ukraine last year at the age of 102. He was passionately anti-war, exceptionally funny, and was married to his high school sweetheart for 74 years until her death in 2019.”

A paperback version of Parting Words, entitled Make it Count, was published at the beginning of 2023. The book has sold into 14 territories.

Emily Barrett, publisher of Sphere non-fiction, said: “I will forever be honoured to have worked with someone as incomparable as Benjamin Ferencz; all of us at Little, Brown were so proud to publish him. I never took for granted in my exchanges with him what a difference he made to the world – he deserves to be remembered for centuries to come.

“One of my favourite passages in the book talks about how some might assume that with all the horrors he’d witnessed he’d be cynical about mankind and the future. He wasn’t. He firmly believed a better tomorrow was possible, and his two mantras ‘Law, not war’ and ‘Never give up’ will stay with me always.”