Nuremberg Trials - 75 Years Since the Beginning of Universal Justice

The Centennial Man - Cinema for Peace Honoree Ben Ferencz (100), liberator of concentration camps, chief prosecutor of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen trial in Nuremberg, and Spiritus rector of the International Criminal Court.

Nuremberg - It has been 75 years since the world powers came together to give rise to a global criminal justice system that would give justice to the voiceless, the persecuted, and those that their governments do not protect. Following the defeat of Nazi Germany, 21 high-ranking officials involved in the atrocities committed by the regime were prosecuted and punished, sending a message out to the future perpetrators. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in the courtroom: “In November 1945, Nuremberg was in ruins. Many German cities were in ruins. Our country had been morally and physically razed to the ground (...) But here, in this very room, while the rubble was being cleared away outside, the four victorious powers of World War II laid the foundation for the legal order of a new world.”

One of the notable heroes of the Nuremberg trials, a short man with very large achievements, was Benjamin Ferencz. He landed in Omaha Beach in 1944 and was in charge of freeing the concentration camps and collecting evidence of crimes. At 27 years of age, he was the chief prosecutor of the Einsatzgruppen trial in Nuremberg in which all of the 22 perpetrators in the trial were convicted. After a few years, he worked for the institution of an International Judicial Body to investigate and prosecute the most heinous crimes of our times such as war crimes and crimes against humanity - and developed the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was honoured by Cinema for Peace in New York and Kampala alongside the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. At Cinema for Peace New York, he said: “I don't believe anybody wins in a war, everybody loses in a war. The only winner in war is death. The notion that sovereign is above the law was repudiated in Nuremberg...the illegal use of armed force, inevitably killing large numbers of civilians should not remain immune from criminal prosecution by an International Criminal Court".

President Steinmeier specifically pointed out the recent actions by the Trump Administration in not only not supporting the ICC but also actively going against the body and imposing sanctions against it and it's top officials for the sole reason of investigating the alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan. Apart from the United States, other world powers including China, Russia, and India are still not members of the ICC. This 75th anniversary should give rise to legislative measures in all major powers to recognize the achievements of and the need to protect the global justice system by becoming state parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC.

Ben Ferencz's speech at Cinema for Peace Justice Gala in New York

Watch the trailer to the film 'The International Criminal Court' by Marcus Vetter and Michele Gentile

Watch the trailer to the film 'Judgment at Nuremberg' by Stanley Kramer

Cinema for peace founder survived COVID-19

Berlin - After 48 hours of fighting against falling into a coma on ventilators, the founder of Cinema for Peace Jaka Bizilj, has overcome the critical condition. At the age 48 with no underlying diseases and as a formerly well-trained soccer player for the German Football Federation and Mainz 05, he was brought overnight into intensive care at Charite Hospital in Berlin as his lungs collapsed, ending up at the ICU of Professor Eckhardt, where he had brought Alexei Navalny this year and a Pussy Riot member two years ago.

"I only knew in these crucial nights: I must avoid unconsciousness and the ventilator under all circumstances. In the early stages of the Corona epidemic, 80 percent had died on ventilators, the average death rate in the USA was 60%. I fought with every single breath to stay over the critical oxygen marks, having the constant alarm signal of my life controlling machine in my ears whenever I fell beneath the mark. Three times I gave a veto for the Incubator, standing ready next to me. I thought in my Imagination of being a bodybuilder in this moment, every breath being a push forward, thinking of how Arnold Schwarzenegger survived his latest operations despite his age and coming back stronger than before. Each breath one push…

I want to thank the many artists from all over the world - from Arnold to Ai Weiwei, from Bob Geldof to Jan Josef Liefers, standing by in support and with daily messages in this crucial moment of my life. I ask for a lockdown to save lives and the medical systems and immediate vaccination of everybody without any further bureaucrat delay - also to save the economy. There are no qualified staff left in hospitals, the nurses and doctors are forced to improvise and to triage if we don't stop the Infection explosion NOW. The number of ICU patients has tripled in two weeks and the German Bundeswehr has arrived at the hospital to support logistics. Without the fantastic medical staff at Charité, I would be in a coma now. We can keep this standard if everyone stays at home now.”