A chance meeting with Ben Ferencz

"Immediately, I got up to hold Ferencz's hand, ecstatic at having fortuitously met a person who is a part of the pages of history." 

—

WHEN we had taken seats at the concluding session of the biennial conference of the International Law Association in Washington, D.C. in April 2014 to hear Dr Sundaresh Menon, Chief Justice of Singapore, a frail old man came and quietly sank into the chair next to me.

I casually looked at him. He smiled and turned to shake my hand to introduce himself, "I'm Ben Ferencz." I didn't expect the exhausted-looking old man to engage in conversation, but he appeared keen to talk.

After a brief exchange, Ferencz opened his briefcase and gave me a booklet titled Illegal Armed Forces as a Crime Against Humanity with his autograph stating "Never give up". At first glance, I thought that he was an activist for peace and disarmament. But, as I lazily opened the booklet, the footnote mentioned "The author is the former Nuremberg Chief Prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen Case."

I was awestruck and dumbfounded. I told my colleague B.S. Nagar, seated to my right, "Hey, he was the prosecutor of the Nuremberg trial!" I instantly recalled what Prof. T.R. Subramanya had taught on the Nuremberg trials during my time at University Law College, Dharwad. Immediately, I got up to hold Ferencz's hand, ecstatic at having fortuitously met a person who is a part of the pages of history.

Nine years later, today morning I read an unfortunate report in the Indian Express titled 'Ben Ferencz, last living Nuremberg prosecutor of Nazis, dies'.