Ben Ferencz, the youngest person to prosecute Nazi war crimes at the Nuremberg trials, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal on Tuesday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) presented the body’s highest civilian honor to Ferencz’s family and friends in a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Capitol, recognizing his “life of servant leadership and his courage in the face of evil.”
“Ben spent his life answering the hardest questions and facing the most difficult truths,” Johnson said. “And today, let us hope Ben’s example can inspire all of us to do the same.”
Ferencz was born in Transylvania, in Romania, in 1920 and immigrated to New York with his family as a baby. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he joined the U.S. Army in time to take part in the Normandy invasion during World War II, according to The Associated Press.
A biography published by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum states that Ferencz was tapped to investigate Nazi war crimes as part of the War Crimes Branch of the Army toward the end of the war, during which he gathered evidence about the atrocities that occurred at concentration camps as they were liberated.
