Ben Ferencz Biography
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- Born March 11, 1920
Ferencz was born in Transylvania, part of Hungary, in that moment occupied by Romania as a result of Hungarian–Romanian War, but a few months later ceded to Romania under the Treaty of Trianon (1920), the result of World War I. When he was ten months old his family emigrated to the United States, and according to his own account this was to avoid the persecution of Hungarian Jews by the Romanians after they had gained control of Transylvania. The family settled in New York City, where they lived on the Lower East Side in Manhattan.\n', 'Ferencz studied crime prevention at the City College of New York and won a scholarship to Harvard Law School with his criminal law exam result. At Harvard, he studied under Roscoe Pound and also did research for Sheldon Glueck, who at that time was writing a book on war crimes. Ferencz graduated from Harvard in 1943. After his studies, he joined the U.S. Army, where he served in the 115th AAA Gun Battalion, an anti-aircraft artillery unit. In 1945, he was transferred to the headquarters of General Patton\'s Third Army, where he was assigned to a team tasked with setting up a war crimes branch and collecting evidence for such crimes. In this function, he was then sent to the concentration camps as they were liberated by the U.S. army.\n', 'On Christmas 1945, Ferencz was honorably discharged from the Army with the rank of Sergeant. He returned to New York, but was recruited only a few weeks later to participate as a prosecutor in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the legal team of Telford Taylor. Taylor appointed him Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case—Ferencz\'s first case. All of the 22 men on trial were convicted; 13 of them received death sentences, of which four were eventually carried out.\n', '
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