New York (JTA) — On Nov. 20, 1945, at age 22 — having been kicked out of school in the seventh grade because I was a Jew, after surviving five and a half years in Nazi forced labor and concentration camps … and seven months after my escape from the final death march — I entered the press gallery in the courtroom of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.
It was the opening of the International Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and I was there as a reporter for the German news agency, DANA.
In front of me were the 21 defendants, the surviving top leaders of the Nazi regime [including] Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Julius Streicher … men responsible for what happened to us Jews during the Holocaust.
I could not keep my eyes off them. Often I had the urge to face them: “Why? What had I done? Why did you kill my parents? My 85-year-old grandmother? Losing my education, my friends.”
“But I can’t. I am here as a reporter,” I said to myself.
On Nov. 21, 2005, 60 years later, at the invitation of the German government, I am in Berlin to address a major German audience on the 60th anniversary commemoration of the opening of this historic event.
Back then, my first thought when I entered the press gallery was of my parents and my friends who were brutally murdered and who would never know that there would come a day when those responsible for their murder could be brought to justice.
I will always remember one defendant after another being asked: “How do you plead?” The answer: “Not guilty.”
Three moments
Of all the incredible moments at the trial three stand out in my memory. The first was when the Russian prosecution showed a short film.
The footage was taken as the Russian army took over the Auschwitz complex on Jan. 27, 1945. Nine days before, we the 60,000 surviving inmates were sent on foot, on a three-day death march to the West in the freezing cold Polish winter. Half survived.
The courtroom went dark. I could not take my eyes off the screen. It showed the remains of the gas chambers, the crematoria, the hundreds of wooden barracks, the bodies piled up. There was little narration. The pictures spoke for themselves.
This is how we lived. Five hundred men in one barracks. No toilets, no water. Three men in a cot on straw, never knowing whether we would live to see the next day. Five hundred calories a day. Life expectancy: four to six months.
This is how my friends died. I never gave up hope, but I will never understand how I survived.
When the lights went on I looked at the defendants. Some were smiling. “Propaganda!” I was told was their major reaction.
The second memory was the day that Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, entered the witness stand. This Hoess [different from Rudolf Hess, who was Hitler’s deputy] read what was one of the most horrifying statements ever made in a courtroom.
In a monotonous tone, he stated that according to his estimate, 2.5 million people were exterminated at Auschwitz. Another 500,000 died from hunger. Most were Jews.
In fact, he exaggerated. The actual number was “only” 1.5 million. My parents were among them when they were deported to Auschwitz. I arrived there in 1943. That day they needed laborers, otherwise I would not be alive.
The third most memorable event of the trial was my bizarre meeting with Göring. One day I ran into his defense attorney, Dr. Otto Stahmer. He told me he had read my articles in the German papers and that Göring had also been reading them.
A few days later he asked whether I would like to meet Göring. I was flabbergasted. Why would Göring want to meet me?
I agreed, so one day after the end of the proceedings, Stahmer took me to meet him. He made it clear that I could not write or talk about it.
I was nervous. What would I say? When I entered, Göring got up and reached out his hand.
Without uttering a single word, I turned around and asked to be let out. The last thing I remember was Göring standing there with his outstretched hand. Still today, I am glad that I never exchanged a single word with the top Nazi in Nuremberg.
Birth of a word
The trial lasted about six months. Eleven defendants were hanged. Seven received prison sentences. Two were freed. Göring, the night before the death sentences were carried out, committed suicide by taking a poison pill.
When the trial ended I went back to Bad Nauheim, the DANA headquarters. The officials asked me if I was interested in a permanent job.
I decided that I could not stay in the country responsible for what happened to me, to my family and to the six million who were killed. In summer 1946, I arrived in the United States to begin a new life.
That was 60 years ago. I was lucky to have survived one of the greatest tragedies in all of human history when an effort was made to wipe out the Jewish people from the face of the earth.
It was the first time in history that the top leaders of a country were brought to trial for crimes against humanity and waging war. As I reflect on this historic event, I ask myself: What are the lessons of Nuremberg?
A new word has since entered our language: genocide. It means the killing, starvation, rape or murder of millions of innocent people for religious or political reasons or for no reason at all — on the order of elected or self-appointed presidents or dictators.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, some 170 million innocent men, women and children in 26 countries all over the world were starved, shot, murdered, massacred and tortured.
The term genocide was coined by a Polish lawyer, a Jew, Raphael Lemkin. Revolted and deeply affected by the revelations of the Holocaust, Lemkin became a one-man force to get the then newly formed United Nations to outlaw government-sponsored terrorism and killings.
He never married, had no money, lived on handouts in a walk-up, one- room apartment in Manhattan. Totally obsessed, he cornered government leaders, U.N. officials, ambassadors, religious leaders, U.S. congressmen, senators, wealthy personalities — anyone who would listen to him in his single-mindedness to get the U.N. to confront this issue and deal with it.
One Democratic U.S. senator, William Proxmire of Wisconsin, became his supporter and was able to enlist colleagues in the U.S. Congress for what was then called “The Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” It was formally adopted by the U.N. in 1948. Eventually it was ratified by 137 nations.
Lemkin lived to see the issue become international law. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize but never received his due recognition.
Lemkin died in 1959. Seven people came to his funeral.
Genocide continues until today although the number of victims has declined. The latest genocide is taking place now in Darfur, Sudan.
I believe that genocide is a product of hate and evil. It is a crime of indifference and political inertia. It is moral bankruptcy.
Most genocides don’t just happen. They start with speeches, sermons, incitements and then lead to genocide. This is what happened in Germany. Nobody believed Hitler’s rantings. We know the rest.
Now Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Israel must be “wiped off the map.” We must recognize the hatred early and do something about it now. Not later or worse, not at all.
What did Nuremberg mean to me personally? After surviving the horror of the concentration camps, never knowing if I would live to see the next day, the greatest experience of my life was to witness justice being served.
Ernest W. Michel has been a member of the staff of United Jewish Appeal since 1946, first as a speaker, then as a professional. He retired in 1989 as executive vice president of UJA-Federation of New York. This article was adopted from his speech at the German Justice Ministry in Berlin on Nov. 21.
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