Engraved sterling silver tea tray honoring recipient's service to the URO

Benjamin B. Ferencz was born on March 11, 1920, in Somcuta-Mare, Romania, in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. When he was 10 months old, his family immigrated to the United States. He grew up in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City. He received degrees from City College of New York and Harvard Law School. After receiving his law degree in 1943, he enlisted in the United States Army, where he was an anti-aircraft gunner. Toward the end of the war, he was assigned to the war crimes investigating team charged with recovering evidence for war crimes trials in German towns and in Nazi concentration camps. On December 26, 1945, Sergeant of Infantry Ferencz was honorably discharged. Soon after he returned to the US, he was asked by Telford Taylor to serve as chief prosecutor in the Nuremberg Trial of U.S. v. Ohlendorf, known as the Einsatzgruppen Case, which prosecuted members of Nazi extermination squads. After Nuremberg, he became involved in the issue of restitution of the victims of Nazi atrocities. He was appointed Director-General of the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization and served until 1956. He also was Director of the United Restitution Organization from 1951 until 1993. Ferencz has published a number of legal texts on the topics of world peace and international criminal law. His book, "Less Than Slaves," documents the effort to gain restitution for slave laborers used by the Nazi regime. He and his wife Gertrude have four children. Ferencz remains an advocate of an international criminal court and a proponent of the United Nations and world peace.