Almost 70 years ago, Benjamin Ferencz was a prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trials against high-ranking members of the Einsatzgruppen. This group was not involved in the concentration camps, but they murdered over a million people in the field.

A total of 13 different trials were held in Nuremberg, but they really would have been only twelve. Ferencz managed to convince one of the other prosecutors that even the Einsatzgruppen should be held accountable.

- I said, "You can't let them get away. They have committed mass murders. The proof is here. They must not get away! ”. He asked if I could do it. Sure, I said, and that's it. Then it came to pass that I became a prosecutor in the world's largest murder trial, says Benjamin Ferencz, in the documentary Evil's Prosecutor.

Coined the concept of genocide

The evidence consisted of carefully executed documentation provided by the Germans themselves about who was murdered, how many, where and when. All 22 prosecutors from the Einsatzgruppen were convicted and this laid the foundation for being able to continue sentencing for this type of crime.

"It was during the Nuremberg Trials that people for the first time defined crimes against humanity, genocide and certain war crimes and prosecuted people for committing such crimes," Wesley Clark, retired US general, said in the documentary Evil's Prosecutor.

- When I went to school there was nothing called human rights or international courts. No one had heard of the word genocide. I was probably the first to use "genocide" in the opening speech in Nuremberg, says Benjamin Ferencz.

After the Nuremberg Trials, Benjamin Ferencz struggled to establish an International Criminal Court within the UN. However, it would take decades of work before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, was finally opened in 2001. Benjamin Ferencz was a prosecutor in the first case brought there.

"Law, not war"

He may have seen the worst sides of humanity, but has never given up hope. Today, he is struggling to stop wars first and foremost, and his solution to that is to resort to law instead.

- We just spend more and more money on the race equipment. "Who can manufacture the deadliest weapons?" So the world looks today. We must understand that the solution is spelled legally, not war. It is time to put a stop to the killing and let a court order justice. Until then, you are only killing yourself, says Benjamin Ferencz.

Listen to Benjamin Ferencz himself in the clip above.

Want to know more about Benjamin Ferencz and the Nuremberg Trials? Here you can see the entire documentary Evil's Prosecutor on SVT Play.