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he Holocaust was an unprecedented crime-a crime composed of millions of murders, wrongful imprisonments, and tortures, of rape, theft, and destruction. In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, the world was faced with a challenge-how to seek justice for an almost unimaginable scale of criminal behavior. The International Military Tribunal (IMT) held at Nuremberg, Germany, attempted to broach this immense challenge on a legal basis. This year, we mark the 60th anniversary of the IMT, a watershed moment in international justice. The commemoration of this anniversary coincides with numerous atrocities occurring in our world today-crimes that again challenge us to ask: can justice ever be done?
Nazi Germany planned and implemented the Holocaust within the devastating maelstrom of World War II. It was in this context that the IMT was created, a trial of judgment for war crimes. The IMT was not a court convened to mete out punishment for the Holocaust alone. The tribunal was designed to document and redress crimes committed in the course of the most massive conflict the world has ever known. In October 1945, the IMT formally indicted the Nuremberg defendants on four counts: crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to commit these crimes.
The Holocaust was, in the legal language of the IMT, "a crime against humanity." Convened within months of the end of the war, from the trial's first public session on November 20, 1945, until the verdicts were delivered on October 1, 1946, the tribunal at Nuremberg set precedents: in international law, in documentation of the historical record-in seeking some beginning, however inadequate, in the search for justice.
Background photograph: U.S. Army staffers organize stacks of German documents collected by war crimes investigators as evidence for the International Military Tribunal. Nuremberg, Germany, between November 20, 1945, and October 1, 1946. USHMM #03549 / National Archives.
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View of the defendants in the dock at the International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg. November 1945. National Archives
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TESTIMONY
Benjamin Ferencz describes collecting evidence: "I could follow the trail of crime being committed all along the way."
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ARTIFACT
Cover of a mimeographed program to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg for November 20, 1945. USHMM, courtesy of Karen Sonheim Braden
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ARTIFACT
Visitors' gallery pass to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. This pass was issued to Alex Sonheim. USHMM, courtesy of Karen Sonheim Braden
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PROGRAM
Filmmakers for the Prosecution: Budd Schulberg, Stuart Schulberg, and the Nuremberg Trial. Tuesday, November 29, 2005. 7 p.m.
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