At the age of 27, a young Jewish American lawyer named Ben Ferencz joined the team of prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi war criminals. In 2018, at the time filmmaker Barry Avrich interviewed Ferencz for this documentary, he was the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor and a lifelong champion of civil rights in the United States and in the World Courts. This documentary surveys his life, beginning with his arrival in New York City with his parents, who emigrated from Hungary before the Nazis marched across Europe. He graduated from Harvard Law (where he assisted a professor studying war crimes), enlisted for service in World War II, and ended up a file clerk researching German atrocities. His efforts led to gathering evidence from concentration camps as they were liberated by the Allies, a task he fulfilled with a sense of purpose. Had his family not left Europe, the Jewish Ferencz and his family could very well have been sent to the camps.
After the war, Telford Taylor, the lead prosecutor preparing the Nuremberg Trials, recruited Ferencz for his team. It was Ferencz who uncovered evidence of the Einsatzgruppen death squads and he prosecuted the leaders of these heretofore unknown war criminals, using the term "crimes against humanity" in his presentation. That would have been legacy enough for anyone but Ferencz returned to the civilian life with a passion to continue working to protect the rights of the oppressed. The documentary makes the case that Ferencz was instrumental in the creation of the International Criminal Court. Filmmaker Avrich builds his portrait on extensive interviews with Ferencz, still sharp and passionate at the age of 98, along with historical film footage (including clips of the diminutive Ferencz arguing his case at Nuremberg) and a collection of contemporary legal and political figures celebrating his work and his commitment to justice.
At 83 minutes, the film does not dive deeply into the history of the Nuremberg Trials or Ferencz's subsequent causes and the simple presentation avoids anything that might complicate the narrative, but his personal story drives the film and his lively presence grounds it. And the film is also timely in an age seeing the rise of nationalism around the world. Ferencz saw firsthand that citizens of even the strongest nations can be swayed by totalitarian figures and become mass murderers and he makes the case that the rule of law must be upheld to prevent such abuses of power. As his son recalls, Ferencz would ask him "What have you done for mankind today?" at dinner each night. This film shows the example he set. The film features no explicit imagery or language but does include descriptions of Nazi war atrocities and footage of corpses discovered by the Allied Army while liberating the concentration camps. Recommended.