maintain the peace, but also the vital interests of the united states. ♪ >> friday morning, 11:00. the presidential jet leaves fort worth for the short flight to dallas where the president has a scheduled luncheon address. ♪ >> in november of 1945, war crimes trial's began in germany for major nazi figures. 24 subsequent trial involved defendants accused of killing more than one million people. for the 70th anniversary of the isals, american history tv airing an oral history interview , thebenjamin ferencz

former chief prosecutor. to as born in transylvania jewish family and immigrated to america when he was an infant. he enlisted in the u.s. army after earning his law degree and was later assigned to set up a war crimes branch to investigate nazi atrocities. in part two of his interview, he discusses the war crimes trials and help prosecutors collected evidence against nazi leaders. he also discusses how the u.s. dealt with restitution toward jewish families who survived the holocaust. this is the second of a three-part interview and was conducted by the united states holocaust memorial museum in washington, d.c. it is about an hour and a half. >> i want to go back to when you were put on the team. were there rules? there were nocz:

rules because the people sending this out had not the foggiest idea of what we were supposed to do. we knew we were supposed to do something connected to the war crimes trials. as an attorney, i knew the rules of evidence and what was required. i have been interested in criminal law particularly. constituted admissible evidence in the court of law. we were trying to collect that to make the convictions hold up. up thesed you make things? benjamin ferencz: we had to improvise as we went along. we did not have a regular courtroom where you could call in a witness and examine him with a secretary present and someone else cross-examining or securing his rights. we were taking testimony from friendly witnesses, we would make an affidavit from the sworn by an officer. if it was from a hostile

witness, we would interrogate him privately to see if we can ascertain the truth. when we reached the point we felt we had ascertained the truth, we asked him to write it out in his home in hand and subscribe to it as true and usually brought in officer to witness that or to take a separate deposition. that was more favorable circumstances rather than a trial. that was the evidence we used. >> what was the difference between you and jack in terms of technique or writing reports? benjamin ferencz: jack was a more stable fellow. he was more cautious in his approaches. but he was more exuberant in his descriptions. typicalwould come upon concentration camps scenes and have to write a report, he would say these sadistic beasts were murdering people in cold blood and it is an outrageous

violation of every act of human decency. i would have to call him down and say we are preparing a legal document for indictment. you refer to them as the suspected war criminals and by name and rank. you don't describe anything in graphic terms which would prejudice the person reading that. andjust describe the facts, the facts will speak for themselves. we had a lot of fun together. we were good friends. we had a different approach in our descriptions and also some of our interrogation methods. >> you were alone for the first few months. were you reading each other's reports everyday? benjamin ferencz: we did not get back to report every day. after we had been in the field, we would get back and discuss it together. we were bunk mates. what did you do yesterday? i did that or that.

of course, we would compare. the written reports would have to prepare more carefully. somber between you? benjamin ferencz: no, interestingly enough, it was not somber in the sense that we never laughed. it was not a laughing matter. we didn't take this lightly, neither of us. but somehow it was just getting the job done. there were light moments as well. >> how did you prioritize the work? benjamin ferencz: haphazard, totally haphazard. if he was busy on something, i would take the next case that came in and went out on that one. forward come in, usually these were allied flyer cases or atrocities of killing of hostages in different towns. a mass grave had been uncovered. he would go out and take one

case, and i would go out and take the other one. we would come back when we were through. if we happened to be in the office at the same time, we would compare notes more or less. that was about it. quick you said earlier you thought the military tribunal [indiscernible] benjamin ferencz: yes, they were the nature of military commissions, based on the army standards of court-martial. that was the general guide because they did not have other standards. they were not trying to create new principles of international law by crimes against humanity. they were dealing with war crimes. they understood war crimes because they were prohibited in manual of military conduct. they knew war crime was beyond the less crime beyond military necessity it was rape, pillage, , plunder. these for many years had been codified as the rules of warfare. but they did not deal with questions like aggressive war being a crime these were the things which came later.

they were generated by the fact that people like justice jackson, as well as some of the other british distinguished judges and lawyers who were represented on that, these were people familiar with the broader principles and concepts of international law and justice. in the army, it was just like another g.i. trial where you bring in the accused. he is represented by another officer or individual. the judges happen to be army officers who are available to hear the case. could you describe the incident that happened to you [indiscernible] benjamin ferencz: there were many incidents. i suppose you are referring to a particularly dramatic one i have mentioned in other contexts. coming into camp was always chaotic. the bodies were strewn all over

the place, troops were chasing germans or the inmates had captured the germans and were busy beating them were killing them. people were dying all around. what i would do as a matter of procedure, i would immediately try to seize the records of what happened in camp. had a writing officer. i would go to them and try to find out who was in charge and seize whatever would be relevant for a war crime prosecution. there was an inmate there. it was a favorite position. he said i have been waiting for you. he said come with me. i recall going out with him to the electrified fence and his digging up a box of records which he had kept.

those records were records of all the ss men, identification cards, who had entered that camp and who had left the camp and had their photograph on it. it had their identifying numbers and addresses, date of birth, things of that kind. and he was supposed to destroy each one of those records when a new one was issued or a man left the camp. he did not do that. which meant every time he saved one of those records, there were hundreds of them, he put his life in jeopardy. he was ready to do that, knowing that one day there would be a day of retribution. he saved the records for that day. to me, it was a reflection of human hope and faith and courage , which was very moving and dramatic for me. there was some other incident a few weeks ago.

i never knew who that man was. i admire his courage. and his faith. but i never knew who he was. when i wrote about that in my book i said he was a man whom i , didn't know. and then a few weeks ago i , received a letter from a professor at the american university of paris who had written a book. in that book, he had described -- i think the book was called "in the service of stalin." he had described how communists had gone to spain and had fought on the side of liberating forces. when they were defeated by franco, they had fled into france, but the germans seized them and sent them to the concentration camp to be killed or worked to death. one of those persons was in the service of stalin, according to

the book it was the man who handed me those records. the professor identified him by name and by another man in the camp who had sent regards in who was now in france, who had also been collecting and hiding the death books, registering the exceptional deaths which took listing all camp, the persons killed by unusual means. those files were also turned over to someone who signed on behalf of the commanding general of the army. that is the way i signed most of my receipts. i asked him to see if i could get a copy of that record, which the man had kept with him all these years. 50 years later, we have the coincidence coming out of the blue. the identification of the man who saved those records and one

of his close buddies. >> let's go to after the war. after the trial. presumably, you are going to come back home. benjamin ferencz: as the nuremberg trials wound down, i was engaged in two activities. one was turning our records over to the germans in the hope and expectation would continue to war crime trials. we only had a very small sampling. group einsatzgruppen case, we had 3000 men engaged in killing jews every day. we only tried 22 of them. those were the number of seats we had in the courtroom. what about the rest? we had records. we knew they were and where they had been. all of the other subsequent 12 trials had residual fallouts. we set up a special projects

division. my wife gertrude was engaged in that activity as well. the files was to turn over to the germans. we negotiated with various german prosecuting agencies to see if they would take those files and act on them. in addition we were trying to , publish the records of the nuremberg trials, what subsequently came out as the green series. i was an editor at the beginning. my wife was also working on that. we also had a complete german text, which was never published. it may be around in the pentagon. but the army decided it would be too expensive and have no useful purpose. it was never published. i was doing this wrapping up and looking forward to resuming a normal life and starting a law practice in new york. one day, i had a visit from a man who was general counsel to the joint distribution community. this was the jewish organization

which was the most active, the leading one, the only one at a time providing assistance to jews throughout the world who needed it. at that time, it was all in germany. their headquarters were in paris. and their director was a man by by the name of dr. joseph schwartz. he asked me to come to paris. he said we have a problem and we would like to help you help us with that problem. the problem is this. the jewish organization succeeded in persuading the u.s. government to enact a law providing for the restitution of property, which had been stolen or confiscated from the jews. or from others because the restitution law covered not only jews. one provision of that law was

the unclaimed property which had been taken which were no look at the--no longer there to file a claim should also be restored. normally if a person dies heirle ss, the property passes to the state did but there is a principle of law that says you may not be the beneficiary of any unlawful act. if you murdered your wife, you cannot inherit her property. if you murder the jews, the state that is responsible can hardly be the proper recipient of the property. as a matter of military law, don't forget germany surrendered unconditionally. and the only government there was the military government. originally, the four powers, later split up. the united states was responsible for the military government law in the u.s.-occupied zone of germany. military government law number 59 said that a successor organization shall be appointed to cover the jewish property.

the jewish restitution successor organization. the jewish organization which succeeded in getting that into law didn't know where to begin. they inquired about. they said we would like you to be the guy who sets this up. you know your way around germany. you know what happened to the jews. high-ranking with the u.s. army. this was all military occupation at the time. we don't think anything will come of it. but we have a moral obligation to try. and of course we don't have any money to put into this. we need our money for relief of survivors. we have enough to pay your salary for six months. it was $6,000 or $7,000 altogether. would you undertake this for us? i said i would have to talk to my wife. we were getting ready to go

home. we had been in germany for two years, much longer than we expected. i discussed it with my wife. my good wife gertrude said look, you know this business better than anybody else. how long did they say we take? i said they thought it might take two years. she said knowing you it would only take one year. i agreed to stay and i designated myself the director general of the jewish restitution successor organization, knowing nothing would impress the germans more than being a director at the general. that is how it began. >> what was the date? benjamin ferencz: i was hired for that job in august 1948. and we had an immediate major crisis. the law required all claims be submitted by the end of that year, the end of december, 1948.

that was four months in which to find staff, find funding, training staff, locate the property, submit the claims on long forms because this was a first step in a long judicial process. the first thing i did was recognized that was impossible. as soon as i agreed to undertake the job, i resigned from nuremberg and it went to see the commanding general for all u.s. forces in germany stationed in berlin. i had known general clay from before. i had been head of a branch in berlin collecting evidence for the trials. i went up to see him and said i have this problem. i need an extension of the law. i said i can't locate all of the confiscated jewish properties.

hundreds of thousands of properties of all kinds all over germany in three months time with no staff, no money, no nothing. we discussed the problem and he said i don't want to extend the law. the sooner we get this problem over with, the better off we will be. this will be a thorn in germany's side. and i don't want to extend the restitution law. i said i will make a deal with you. i will try to get it done and only come back to you if possible. but i will try. but in order to get it done, i need money first of all. i need staff. theaid, didn't organizations know that when they wanted to get this written into the law, that it would cost money? i said you can't ask the jewish spending every penny they raise to save lives and rescue them to put money into trying to get restitution

of jewish property. i said i think we can take the money out of occupation funds. united states army was running on occupation funds. the german treasury printed money and we used it to pay for what we needed. he said he you know i can't get occupation funds because it requires approval. the russians will have to agree. they will never agree to use the money for private property claims. i don't think the french will agree and i don't think the british will agree. and i cannot do it on my own. i said i have another proposition, let me borrow the money from the american segment of the occupation funds and when i get restitution i will repay the money. he said, can i do that legally? i said i have a memorandum that says you can. legal, if you say it is go down and talk to my finance man. tell them it is ok. i want to get this over with. i went down and talked to him.

i said i've just come from the general. we are setting up the restitution program. we have a rush job and i need enough funds to get this thing going. he said how much do you need? i said one million marks. one million marks was a lot of money. i was already ready to sign. i signed promising to repay. with that money, i immediately hired staff, german investigators. i requisition cars from the army using my old army authorization trial andar crimes sent investigators into every real estate office in germany with instructions to copy down the names of any jewish names who transferred property in 1933. the germans had been held for to us and stamped aj on the property, meaning jew, so you

could identify. we claimed the property of the big nazi leader. we would rush to get the claims out on a big complicated form. in nuremberg, there was a club occupied by latvians, mostly drivers. latvians have been busy killing jews before they retreated with the germans and work captured by the americans and used by the americans. i said we throw them out of that building. i need it for restitution. i moved them out. i've moved my furniture across the street to the slatkin club. we set up there in a big dance hall with tables touching each other. a typewriter on every table. 24 hours a day, we filed claims. as they came in from the field

, the investigators brought the claims. we had secretaries typing. i took an eight hour shift. my deputy took an eight hour shift. another man by the name of dr. george weiss handled the third shift. loadeding deadline, we all the claims into a u.s. army ambulance i had requisitioned and there was a claim center where we had to file these claims. we drove this and it lets to the claim center and filed 173,000 claims for 173,000 pieces of property in the american zone of germany. i called up clay and said we don't need an extension. we filed everything. that is when we submitted the claim.

that was only the beginning of the process. the system set up was that a person who felt he had been forced to sell his property under duress or had it confiscated was authorized to file a claim, setting down all the facts. that then went to a restitution agency, a special judicial type agency. there were not really courts to deal with these claims. they would hear the counterclaims, because the person who bought it would say wait a minute, i paid fair value for it. my friend was the neighbor next door, i wanted to help him escape so i gave him 100,000 marks, the property wasn't worth more than 80,000. as a result, he escaped. he sent me three letters when he was in brooklyn. he did not file a claim because he felt fairly treated. who are you to come claim this property? or they said look, i bought the , property, i put on a new roof.

the roof cost more than the property was worth. there was a mortgage on the property. i paid off the mortgage. who will give me back the mortgage money? then the process began, there were two or three claims. said theye person bought it in between and it passed through several hands. it was a complicated legal process which began. if any party was not satisfied with the decision of the restitution agency, they could go to the restitution court. that was part of the regular judicial system. from there they could file an judicial system in germany. and then there was a final court of restitution appeals, composed originally of allied judges. later, it was mixed. american judges sat on the court of restitution appeals and they would hear the legal arguments and factual arguments in all of these cases before rendering the final binding decision. their decisions were all

published. i have given them to the holocaust memorial museum. this long legal process began. for that, we needed lawyers. when we got the property back, we needed people to manage it, repair it. we had hundreds of businesses of all kinds which had to be managed and run. for all of this, we had to train people. it never happened before in history. we could not trust the germans. we had to be careful. i had access to all the nazi party files. we hired nobody without a security check, which meant a limited selection. we had about 9 million nazi party files, to which i had free access. it was a very interesting legal process to try to create precedence by giving a few legal questions, which came up very early on. let me make two or three to show

you how history might have been quite different with a few wrong decisions. wasfirst key issue we had at what rate of exchange would , you have to repay? the principle of law is simple. if a person enters into a contract under duress, when that duress is removed, he has the option of undoing the contract. but he has to get what he got. and he gets back what he gave good these are principles of law i learned at harvard. they are not something invented by military government. in one way orle another in all civilized societies. what happened was that when the property was transferred in 1937 and 1938, let's assume the jewish owner received 100,000 mark for it. by 1949 or 1950, the mark no longer existed. the deutsche mark was converted

at a ratio of 10 to one. he received a 100,000 mark and was given back 10,000 deutsche marks. the german said wait a minute, i gave you 100,000 marks. you give me back 10,000. if the jewish owner had been required to give back 100,000 marks, he would say the property not worth it. the building has been bombed. pay back 100,000 deutsche marks, which was an awful lot of money. they did not have the money. it would have been completely different. i had a lot of problems with this. i took this case to the court of restitution appeals for opinion. the issue was, who bears the burden of the loss? the jewish victim? didn't have to be jewish. the victim of nazi persecution,

or is it the nazi or german who acquired the property? to my mind, the risk of the currency devaluation should not not rest with the victim who sold under duress. it should rest with the person who acquired the property. just as if he had kept his money in the bank, it would have devalued. that opinion prevailed. if the opinion had gone the other way there would have been , no restitution program in germany. practically none. i will give you another case. a dramatic case. the german jews had mostly fled. they were organized in congregations. every town had their own congregation. these are legal entities in germany. anybody who is a member of the congregation has to pay taxes to the state. the state supports the congregation out of these funds. the german-jewish congregation had been dissolved. the property had been seized.

the properties consisted of old age homes, large buildings. various properties. the previous owners were scattered all over the world. there were in israel, the united states, argentina, shanghai, where they could find refuge. some small groups had reconstituted themselves. they came into munich. very few members have been part of the conversation before. they came from other places and they reestablished themselves and said we are now the congregation. some of them having been forced to survive using all kinds of means or less than the most honorable or creditable people. somewhere bunch of crooks as confirmed by being arrested from time to time on various charges. they said we are the owners. for example we set up a new

, congregation, we are claiming restitution of the property. and i said hold on. you are not claiming restitution of the property because i am the successor organization designated by military government law. they said no, this is our con -- our congregation the cemetery is , whatever it was in some of them are valuable properties. long story short i argued that case and i remembered quite dramatically, because i addressed the three american judges. i said may please the court, i stood on this spot, literally the same spot, and argued nazis, the prosecution of the nazis who had murdered the jews. i never thought i would stand here and argue against the jewish community. but i have to. those who are entitled cannot

speak for themselves. i made the argument that those who are entitled were scattered a did not get the assets to small itself proclaimed group was not subject any kind of controls. it was known as the -- case. some of those who argued against me ended up in jail. there again, if that case had gone the other way, all the jewish properties in germany, which had brought -- which had belonged to congregations would have disappeared. so we had several cases like that, which were decisive on how this program was to be carried out. we had good luck. more than good luck we were on the right side. and being able to carry up the program for the recovery of

thousands of pieces of unclaimed jewish property -- i don't want to run too long, but i think it may be of historic significance. in the end we surrendered and did it and an interesting way. because of these problems of currency conversion and because the germans resented having given up their homes -- they had invested all kinds of things and there were no substitute. housing was in great demand. there was resentment against this strange organization, which comes along and insists on taking the property back and only paying a small fraction to what had been given to the property.

very often what had been taken from them -- discriminatory taxes. it got to be a very bitter business, and it was generating anti-semitism in germany, which didn't need any and tyson's -- anti-semitism generated in the immediate postwar years. the jews were being moved out of germany from the camps to israel. which itself was destitute. there was no place to put them. they were prefabricated. no water, but in open fields. this was a situation that called for immediate action, i had to generate money at once by every

possible means. so i had to devise new techniques. let me give you a specific example of the type of problem. there was a case where a woman had acquired the home of a jewish neighbor. i don't remember if it was 1937 or 1938. probably earlier than that. no claim had been filed except for the jewish success organization. we asserted the claim, she made the usual arguments. i was hoping my jewish neighbor, what do you want, who are you? we said nevermind. we are going to give you back 1/10 of what you paid. it so happened she was the aunt of an american army general who not only was an american army general, he happened to be the commanding general of the

district in germany that was bombed where he lived. he call me up and said what do you think you are doing? my aunt is no nazi. they didn't file a claim because they were grateful to her. how do you, filing a claim and dementia gets out of her house? and you are offering her 1/10 of what you paid for it. i said, sir, i'm here to carry out the law. that is what is provided in the law and i think the law is correct. i negotiated with your aunt and i negotiated with others. we try to be fair in our settlements and adhere to the last drop of blood and pound of flesh. i will simply carry out the law, which is a military government law. that's what i intend to do. please advise accordingly.

john mccloy is in the high commission of germany. mr. mccloy got on the phone with me. he said i just got a call from the general. i have forgotten his name. he is raising holy hell. he says you are doing much worse than the nazis. all she did was help her jewish friend. he is very distressed. i said mr. mccloy, as a good lawyer you know well that the transaction in 1938 was a duress transaction and avoidable at the option of the person whose property was taken. i exercise that option as i must

to require the transaction be rescinded. i'm sure it is with yours. he said i will call up the general and tell him. that is what happened. eventually we settled. we had this problem thousands of times again and again. it not only took time, but we are not getting the money we needed for these urgent tasks of saving lives. i decided to take another approach. and that was to try to sell these claims to the german government.

global settlements. i went to the finance ministry and different german states. i said look, we have this problem, we are generating a lot of anti-semitism. we have to solve this problem. the way i suggest we solve it is reassigned the claims to you, so we are not an official ares by way of the -- not a beneficiary by way of -- you need to make that sacrifice to maintain peace in your life. the first suggest and we made was frankfurt was nearby. there are some funny stories connected -- that was the first settlement, 25 million marks. it was about 1951, it must have

been. the state agreed to take assignment for all of the claims -- in exchange for 25 million marks down. then we did that with berlin. a very difficult problem. the manager urges a man whose name you will find in your archives. a very moral and righteous human being come a very strong sense of justice, and was very helpful in connecting the appeal for slave laborers. i had great respect for him. you will carry out the law as it was intended to be. he said i will not be able to carry it out that way for

political reasons. it is important justice be done. you do it. i said, half pity. i can't do it. anti-semitism it was causing. he said, you do it. i never settled. we settled everyplace else. this is an illustration of a difficult political problem and an economic problem as well. and then the states went on for many years. by and large it was a fair and sensible arrangement as i look at it now in retrospect. it was way -- was a way to get the gun out on a legal path. it was found to be

insurmountable. it had many such problems. let me tell you another problem, which was a very fascinating problem in a way. the problem is what do you do about jewish cemeteries? i know nothing about the orthodox jewish rituals. but i had enough common sense to realize i was not going to touch that subject without strict guidance who are responsible -- a strict guidance over who are responsible. they all had their own cemeteries, every congregation

had a local cemetery. sometimes it was a significant plot of land. so i set up a council headed by the chief rabbi of israel at the time. there was another german rabbi who represented the jewish communities in germany. these three were to give me the guidelines of what could be done with a jewish cemetery. my instructions were we provide strictly -- is we abide strictly to these rules. once a jewish cemetery always a

jewish cemetery. you can't do anything with a land in which somebody is buried. you must leave it lying there. all of the jewish cemetery had been desecrated. it can be sold, providing it is not sold for a profane purpose. a hospital is not a profane purpose. gambling casino certainly is. we had to know what was being sold and for what purpose it was being sold. let me just take a minute or two for a very amusing story. we had a situation of a cemetery

in the old town. and on catholic town. there was a jewish cemetery. a man wanted to use part of the cemetery, which was in the center of town by the time the years had passed. it was a hundred years ago. he said he wanted to use it as a customhouse. right on the east german border. they said customhouse?

that is ok. a germanic telegram. they are building a customhouse and digging up bones. the contract was clear. there was a certain area where -- they were going to have a little memorial park next to it. the cemetery had been desecrated completely, but we are going to have a park there with a plaque, and the customhouse was built in the area on the blueprint where there were no graves. that created a major problem. i saw an immediate injunction, i'm on my way home. when i got back to nuremberg or frankfurt at the time, i said how far has it come? a big building. a one portion was over the grave site. it was a small area of maybe 10 by 15 feet. i said tear the building down.

they said you can't do that. the jewish community came to me, you can't tear that building down. life will be unbearable. i said let me consult with the council. they went into a meeting at a conference and finally came up with a solution. you may not have anything on a cemetery except for a jewish prayer house. a big building. we may not know much about engineering. better look some more. and then some genius came up with a solution. you have to build the prayer house under the building. so that the building rests on

top. so that is an idea. so anybody who ever views this tape, i reckon they go check it out. in a corner of the customs house there is a small room, which is a prayer house, built in accordance with specification and laid down in israel with inscriptions on the wall, with stained-glass windows. there is room for a torah. that was built under the customs house.

it is the world's most unknown, unused synagogue that ever existed. i went to check on that 10 years later and i started with a customs house. you turn to the right three blocks. i want to see the synagogue in this building. they said this building is the customhouse. i said there better be a synagogue in this building. then they call somebody upstairs and they said oh yes, they took me down to the basement and kick some boxes away. he opened the door and said this is what you are looking for? i said that is it. i said has anybody ever used this? he said no, never.

keep on doing it. go to visit the customs house and check out for me, they are bound to do that forever. let me tell you another story about forever. how long is a cemetery to be maintained? one of the things we worked out as they would be responsible for the maintenance of the jewish cemeteries. under german law a cemetery is only maintained for 20 years. every town has their own cemetery and every resident is entitled to be buried in that cemetery. germans are very orderly people. after 20 years they are required to take away the tombstone. saves money, saves ground, and some emotional sentiment. as we are reaching the end of

the 20 year period, i said now you take care of the cemeteries. jewish law requires a cemetery to maintain forever. forever costs money. you have to cut the grass. it costs money. we are not going to pay that. why should we treat you better than we treat our own? it got to be a very emotional argument, a very dramatic argument. the germans were finally persuaded to accept the jewish ritual. they do maintain the cemeteries in perpetuity. this was also part of the

restitution. i convinced them by slamming on table the bones i brought from me -- i brought with me from auschwitz. >> tell me about the cultural restitution. >> since the jewish restitution's jewish success organization -- was authorized to claim all unclaimed jewish property, it also recovered many thousands of jewish cultural objects, which had been assembled by the germans. taken from all the occupied territories. rosenberg was the nazi ideologue

named in his honor. they were to go sees all jewish cultural objects. the nazis had various plans for them. these were eventually assembled in a big warehouse under the custody of the united states army, and they turned it over to the jewish restitution success organization. our first goal was to try to locate the owners. if there was a kiddush plate, which i do find out where the man was or if it came from a congregation that still existed. we did the same, incidentally, with individual properties of restitution. we are called the equity procedure of getting the property back to real owners.

to our first goal, restore to the rightful owners. usually you couldn't tell. so the next goal was to try to distribute them wherever they were needed for jewish reconstruction. a separate entity with set up by the jewish organization, called jewish cultural reconstruction. and the professor of columbia university was a member of our board of directors. ne of the persons who first came to germany to help guide us with what to do with these things. i was a young fellow and i did not know enough about cultural life and germany.

we set up these cultural reconstructions. then we broaden experts from israel. a gentleman who came in from the museum in israel to help us with all of the crowns and all of the objects. we also had people restoring them. we had a school of scribes working in paris. i learned a scroll can be repaired. the scroll has to be buried. all of which we followed very precisely. i was very insistent on that.

the law was laid down by the councils and we don't vary that in any way. it was strictly to be observed. and they repaired those, which could be saved. and this council could advise where they were needed. some we sent as remembrance scrolls to different communities throughout the world. and we did the same with the ceremonial objects. we restore them, or we returned them. we then distributed wherever it was needed. had hundreds still of broken knives, forks, dishes, plates, all kinds of little bits and scraps.

the question is, what do we do with that? i found a jewish silversmith and london. ,othing can be done with it let's melt it down and we will use the proceeds for a jewish chair -- charity. i thought that was being clever. i then went to the board of directors in new york and reported on the great care in disposing and all of these things. i was feeling very happy and very proud of myself. $50,000 or something like that. from the silver scraps that we sent off to the silversmith and the goldsmith brothers in london, and they smelted them down, and they sent us a proceeds from london, and we give them to the charitable

organizations, whereby the first person raised his hand and he was less elderly then, he is still living, and he said, mr. benjamin: -- mr. benjamin ferencz, you took these holy objects and you sent them to a crematorium? i knew from that question that i was cooked and i tried to explain it the best that i could that it was not really a crematorium, it was our way of trying to carry out our assignment and we realized that the assets could be benefiting those who survived, and i don't -- i don't think he forgave me for that, that we became very good friends after the years passed. there was this problem in dealing with a new area that had never been done before. we had paintings in which we had disposed of and there were all kinds of things and it was part of the restitution program. >> [indiscernible]

benjamin: he was there for a relatively short. of time, but knowing the jewish communities of germany really well, she was helpful to us in identifying various ceremonial objects, she knew what period they were from, what might it have been from -- what it might have been from, and let me tell you another story of collections. among the collections were, of course, many jewish books. there were old jewish books, you know, and they were of great value. the germans had also collected such books, and i mean german universities, german churches, part of their religious studies, and the nazis had picked those of. there were institutions that have legitimately acquired those books and they were quite valuable.

one day, a jewish rabbi, a chaplain, i think his name was bernstein, pulled up with an ambulance to the back of one of these archives and selected some of the most valuable jewish books and filled up the ambulance and put them on a ship smuggling immigrants to israel, palestine as it was known. so these were books which had belonged to legitimate german institutions and they had been lawfully acquired, so it was a case of unlawful confiscation. one day i got a call from general mcclay, and he said, benny, you've got to come up, we've got a problem. i have his captain and i'm about to court-martial him for stealing german jewish property. and he said, we have a

restitution program here and we are restoring property to those from whom it was unlawfully taken, so it doesn't mean you can go off and steel property from the germans and i am going to court-martial him and i said, don't do that, for god sakes. there are mitigating circumstances coming he thought it was jewish property, he didn't know, i did know, and i said, i will get it back. so i went to israel and he gave me a long list rims about 10 or 12 pages of different books of which i know nothing. so i go to israel and i meet with the government officials there, and i was in contact with the finance ministry mostly, and general mcclay says i have to make restitution of this property. where is it? and they said, it is in mount scope us, and i said will let's

go up to mount scope us -- scopis, and i said, well, let's go up to mount scopis and get it. and they said, we can't go up there, the arabs are up there, so we can't get there, and i said, so when can i get up there? and they said, when the war is over. so i called back to berlin, and i say, sorry, general, they are ready to make restitution, but the arabs are there. i can't go up there until things quiet down and then we will get restitution. so he accepted that, and he left shortly thereafter, and to my knowledge, that has never been settled by way of restitution, although we did have such a problem that the hague had negotiations with the germans,

and a german society of the templars made some kind of a deal which may have incorporated some of these books, i really don't know. but it was a case of the german organizations required to make restitution's, and whether they made it or not really don't know and i cannot say. >> [indiscernible] benjamin: what do you mean? >> you said you were going to -- benjamin: we were going to stay in germany for one year but we stayed in 10 years, and after 10 years i have four children, and we decided to resign from his organizations and returned to new york, but i did remain as an advisor for very many years after that. >> what was life like for you and your family there? benjamin: it was a colonial, cloistered existence, and maybe you should ask my wife to hear what it was like from her point of view. we did recognize, the first german elected to my house -- german and let into my house,

was a professor who had worked out -- walked out of the german legislation, but i may tell you about that when i tell you about the hague negotiations. but it was a very colonial kind of existence, the americans only fraternize with americans, everything was very cheap, -- fraternized with americans, everything was very cheap, it was like living in india. there were some executions, and before the execution, i said -- i've received several death threats, and after those death threats, i would take my name off of the door. but it was comfortable in the sense that we could travel. it was a nice country, it had nice mountains, we were young, but it was not a happy place to

be. you always felt beleaguered, sort of, you were surrounded by persons who regarded you as a firm in the years before and suddenly, they had never heard of such a thing -- you as a kind of vermin in the years before and suddenly, they had never heard of such a thing, so nevertheless, they were not unhappy years, but we were determined to leave before the job is really done. -- was really done. >> [indiscernible] benjamin: nobody could live in germany without seeing black-market activity, everything was run on the black market, i mean, there were rations and you could choose between bread or beer, but there was an official black-market in

berlin, for example, where in order to attempt to curb the wildlife market, they could bring their stuff to the central black market, it wasn't called that, it was called the exchange, or something. cigarettes were currencies. people literally worked with you for cigarettes. it was very grim at that point. >> was black-market helpful? benjamin: it is hard to answer that question. i did have a discussion with dr. schwartz in paris about that. it is interesting you should raise it. the jews would receive an equivalent of care parcels receiving various things that they needed, sugar, coffee, clothing, material to make things.

it was sending in mostly cigarettes, because that was the most negotiable item, and i discussed that with joe shorts the -- joe schwarz, from a moral point of view. i said, and don't you think it would be better to set up soup kitchens? he said, no. he said, i think, first of all we get much more bang for our buck this way. this is the currency of trade and it is cheap and you can buy a lot with it. secondly, he said, it is an outlet for their emotions, and this will take them out of this atmosphere.

my concern was that their moral standards would be destroyed by engaging in illegal activities and that there was no respect for the law. i couldn't persuade him at the end of it, and in retrospect, he was probably right, because people, in order to survive, legality was irrelevant. they did whatever they had to do in order to survive. in that kind of an atmosphere, the thing that i had to do, since i was a lawyer, in notions of strict legality, it was unrealistic and perhaps unfair and i was overly concerned about that. anyway, the black-market did in time disappear and i am not sure that it did any big harm anywhere, but it changed things, a lot of german goods were

exchanged for cigarettes. but i don't think it had any permanent significance. >> deed -- did you witness any -- [indiscernible] benjamin: oh, of course. i had no personal relatives of my own in the camps, but some cousins of my wife were there, and the conditions were very rough. but not as compared to the concentration camps. but everyone was very eager to re-create their lives. they were remarrying, any survivor was remarrying and raising children as quickly as they could, a defiance of that hitler was not going to succeed. >> what was done to help the victims with their own injuries? benjamin: that seems to me to be perhaps the most important or

next to the most important of ways in dealing with holocaust problems. holocaust begins with war, war is a form of holocaust. the next phase is to hold accountable those who brought it on with the war crimes trials. the third phase is trying to restore what had been taken, that is the restitution program, and the fourth phase is the victim, what about the victims? in the courtrooms you think that the punishment is given out, but it is not over. criminals can be punished or killed, but it doesn't make a big difference in terms of deterrence, but what do you do about those who survived? this was a problem that was not addressed by military

government, except in the very crudest way in seeking compensation in the time at them -- the camp. they suffered all kinds of losses. if you are approached it legally, then it required a much more extended approach. do you want me to tell you about that now? i will to you about how it began and how it was approached. the notion that the individual survivor was an old notion. it was quite obvious to anyone who was concerned with the subject people had begun to write about it in israel and the united states about compensating victims of personal injuries. germany was eager to reenter the family of nations.

there is a devout catholic who had been saved by jewish friends nazis were trying to drive the man out as mayor of cologne. he was very eager to find some way in reaching out to the jewish communities. he was able to do that through a banker in london.

he established first contacts with the german government, this is the post-nazi government, saying, let us try to arrange something. they were involved very early close, the banker had been involved in a very different that a quay and the first question was, are the german serious -- in a way that was very -- the banker had been involved in a way that was very serious, and the first question was, are the germans serious? there was the idea that you shall not steal, and they would kill the victims and get away with it, and that was the same thing with compensation, and restitution programs. what compensation is payment for individual injuries sustained. but the individual had to clear it with his government, which was conservative. socialists were more inclined and they themselves had been nazi victims. the first thing that was

necessary was to test their sincerity. he proposed a compensation of one billion marks, and they did not know what it was, because it was so huge, but he was able to give them assurances that he would have the negotiations be serious and eventually, the agreement was reached that we would and negotiations. at the negotiations would have three parties, one, the german government, and by that i mean the west german government. the east german government never answered. communications were sent to them, but this only began after germany was restored to its sovereignty around 1951.

before then, there was no government to deal with. the agreement was reached that a negotiation would be entered into on neutral territory. no jewish organization wanted to go into germany. i said there were three parties. the state of israel was a party, and at the time, the state of israel was a new state and there were a lot of enemies against it. israel never purported to speak for jews who were not in israel. who would speak for them? both jews were not there -- most jews were not there, polish jews, german jews, russian jews. they had a genius to put this together as a conference on jewish german claims against germany. it began as a conference and it kept the name conference, and it

consisted of a collection of the leading jewish organizations in the world. it had central british fund, jews of argentina, the jews of france, they all came together and formed a new york operation and they were going to be the third negotiating parties so that the germans were negotiating with all of the choose in the world. the negotiations would take place in a secret destination in a neutral country. to give you some idea for the feel of it, there was a big outcry in the jewish community, particularly in israel, that it was a betrayal of jewish honor. you are selling my mother, you are trying to get money for blood, those who do this will be betrayed by the germans, and

there is no good german except for a dead german, we don't want their lousy money, we don't want anything to do with them, you are a betrayer of the jewish people. there was a busy engagement of smuggling jews into palestine at that time, and that group felt strongly about that, to the extent that they did send a bomb or in in -- in anti-german -- in a german encyclopedia, and the bomb exploded and killed two policemen. they had sent a letter bomb to the head of the german delegation, but to give you a little closer feel as to what

this is like, the preparations for this meeting took place at the grove in her house in london for about a week -- grovner house in london. i was there as claims counsel because i knew about restitution and i knew about what happened and all of that, so i was a expert -- an expert. i can think of so many better experts, there were learned international lawyers, but we had a crew that was working in london trying to prepare the opening statements seen what we are asking for?

since my wife and i had parachuted out of a plane into berlin from a recent time before, i was not eager to fly to her ever the meeting place was supposed to be. i said, look, tell me, i will get there by train. i was told when we left there, you will be given an envelope and don't open it until you get to the taxi, and when you get there, open it and follow the instructions. we were under the security of the israeli secret service, and i opened it up and it said proceed to holland. i thought it was a strange way to go to brussels, and there i was checked out at customs and i came in and they looked at my passport and they said, just a moment, and they had some men

come out of the back room and he said come with me and i sat in a big, black buick and off we drove into the night. and after a day and a night i said, excuse me, can be -- can you tell me who are you and where are you taking me? he said, i am the duchess secret police and i'm taking you to a secret meeting site. when dawn was breaking, we pulled into an old castle, and it seemed to me that i had seen ss men with police dogs there, and i thought that the group had been executed and i thought i had walked into a trap and that there was a nazi underground as well, but as i looked at it a little more closely, when i realized i saw the s as police,

it was the dutch police t --he ss men, it was the dutch police, and it was not a trap. i came in and checked it at the front desk, and the castle had been converted into a first-class hotel, and i checked into the hotel. i was told to open the drawers, and there is a policeman's station on every floor, and if there is anything strange, immediately alert them. the jewish delegation came in and he -- and the leader received a normal envelope would have -- envelope that had black powder at the bottom with a detonator. it would kill anybody to had it in his hand or anybody nearby, and that was intercepted by the dutch police, the israeli

police, i think it was. we were told, because folk, because we knew that a member of a gang had entered brussels looking for us and was waiting in holland. they had been tracking him. so it was filled with a lot of apprehension. there was a plane coming in with two is really delegates that had crashed over frankfurt, and it crash landed but it had killed everyone on the plane. we don't know if there was any connection and i don't know to this day, it may have just been an unfortunate coincident, and i hope it was, but it was an area of high tension. when we appeared, there were people marching in the streets, threatened to kill anybody who's connected with the negotiations. so that was the way it began and what we were trying to do was to create the sense of justice from

the injuries, and the german coin a term that literally meant "make good again," but you can't make anything good again. i felt there was a moral obligation as well as a legal obligation when you injure someone, there is a duty for you to try and make recompense as best you can and try to heal them as s2 can, and that continues to this day -- as best as you can, and that continues to this day. no one had ever done this before. no one had ever sat down after a war to provide individual compensation to the victims of not only that war, but the persecutions related to it. to work out the principles and set up the machinery and to put

it into legislative paths and to let it be decided on an enormous scale, i mean, millions of claims, jews and non-jews. jews were the primary targets, and the gypsies were close behind on the knotty extermination programs, but there were very many other victims, including german victims, and it would be a mistake to disregard them, and we didn't disregard them. working out the compensation laws, it would indemnify them, and they all have equal rights under the law, jews and non-jews. >> [indiscernible] benjamin: let me give you some idea of the legal principles

involved. first, what do you ask for? we had global sums in mind, and we thought of 3 billion marks going to israel to help cover some of the costs that they had incurred in absorbing the immigrants of not the persecution, trying to rehabilitate them. it was a global some, which at that time was vital to israel. germany had no money. germany was devastated. how do you pay it? it must be paid over a period of 10 to 12 years. the claims was to give $5 million for compensation to the jews outside of israel to help with organizational assistance. then we had from these payments, incidentally, that is really

railroads were billed, the israeli electrical system in germany, and if anyone had been to israel, they know that all of the taxi cabs were built by mercedes, and it was a great help. it is ironic that the state that was dead set on destroying the jews helped to create the jewish state and help it to survive. people like to forget it, and say no, but it is an unfair thing to do. then, what do you do for the individual? how do you measure? we decided very early on, we were not going to decide anything for loss of life. you don't give $6 billion for the loss of life, but you do take the ordinary principles of law. if a child lost his father, who

is his provider? in the provider was a high income, middle income, or low income person, he would be based -- he would be getting money based on that. if certain portion of the income would be used for that child and it would be used for that child for a certain number of years, and the german government would pay for it and would pay for it for a limited number of time and there would be a percentage, and how much could they afford to pay, and there is a theme song, we have other obligations to pay. so working out all of these principles of the law, how can we compensate, like an insurance company? it was through six months of detailed, acrimonious decision-making. announcer: next weekend on sunday, november 29th, we will air part three of this interview with benjamin ferencz.

in the third part, he discusses the aftermath of the war crimes trials and how we jewish community found lost property, and that is quite to be on sunday, november 29, at 8:50 a.m. eastern. all persons having business before the supreme court of the united states should draw near and get their attention. will discuss we brown versus the board of education. separate but equal meant a six block walk to the boss -- to the bus that would drive her to the all-white school, you know the all-black school is only a few blocks away. thisrother school -- soup school board and made it all the way to the supreme court.

we will explore racial tensions of the time and the immediate and long-term impact of the decision. that's coming up the next landmark cases, like monday night at 9:00 eastern. order your copy of the landmark cases companion book, available for $8.95 plus shipping at /landmarkcases. >> you're watching american history tv. forow us on twitter information on her schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. announcer: "american history tv" is featuring c-span's original series, "first ladies: influence