Delray Beach post office named for Nazi hunter, peace advocate who lived nearby

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A hub for sending and receiving messages, the U.S. Post Office in Delray Beach now bears the name of the man whose work prosecuting Nazis led him to a life spreading the word to advance humanity's momentum against hatred and division.
Benjamin Berell Ferencz, who died in 2023 at age 103 in Boynton Beach, was at 27 the youngest prosecutor of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials that immediately followed World War II. He himself witnessed the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps as a young U.S. serviceman. That experience propelled a lifelong dedication to human rights that needs to resonate even more at this moment in history, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel said as she unveiled Ferencz's name at the post office at 14280 Military Trail.
'In naming this post office after Ben Ferencz, we not only honor him, we reaffirm the values he stood for: justice, human dignity and the courage to speak out against hate,' said Frankel, who introduced the requisite legislation to make the post office naming happen. 'So may this post office, named effort for Ferencz, be a lasting symbol of those values, a place that reminds us to stand firm against antisemitism and all forms of hatred and division.
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'That's something we should all commit ourselves to and hopefully, everyone who walks through that door feels the same way,' Frankel added.
Dignitaries gathered for the event recalled how Ferencz's short stature — just 5 feet tall — belied his undeniable moral authority and booming voice.
Here's a look at his life:
The 1943 graduate of Harvard Law School in 2014 received the school's Medal of Freedom. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, Congress' highest honor, in 2022 in recognition of his work at Nuremberg and advocacy for the international rule of law.
In addition, Ferencz, who lived for many years at King's Point in Delray Beach, was the last, living Nuremberg prosecutor when Gov. Ron DeSantis awarded him the Governor's Medal of Freedom in 2022. Frankel credited his work with laying the foundation for international law.
Former Palm Beach County Commissioner Maria Sachs recalled meeting him and experiencing his outsized impact on those around him.
'When I met him, I thought that he would speak in a halting voice — after all he was 100 years old,' Sachs said. 'No, no, no — he spoke up loud and in a very strong voice that we should always honor the law and not hatred and war and how important that message is today.'
Ferencz emigrated from Transylvania as a young boy. His family landed in the Hell's Kitchen district of New York City as they sought to escape rampant antisemitism in their native country.
Speaking only Yiddish, he didn't start school until he was 8 years old, according to an obituary Harvard University published. His aptitude was recognized and he was sent to a school for gifted boys, which earned him automatic admission to the City College of New York. After enrolling at Harvard, a leading criminologist urged Ferencz to summarize every book in the Harvard library related to war crimes.
The assignment, Ferencz told Harvard, 'probably changed my life.'
Shortly after graduating from Harvard, Ferencz enlisted and served in an artillery battalion for three years, playing a role in the invasion of Normandy and ultimately earning five battle stars. As a sergeant in Gen. George Patton's 3rd Army, Ferencz visited a handful of concentration camps shortly after they were liberated.
'The scenes have been well-depicted,' he said in 2016. 'Dead bodies lying around, you can't tell if they're dead or alive, their eyes beg for help. Dysentery, lice, rats, stench. Things that are not only indescribable, but unimaginable.'
In 1947 when he argued, as chief prosecutor in one of the 13 Nuremberg trials, for the convictions of 22 former commanders who themselves were charged with murdering more than 1 million Jews and other enemies of the Third Reich in Eastern Europe. Harvard credits him with prosecuting the largest murder trials in history, ultimately convicting all 22 of the accused.
With the war crimes trials winding down, Ferencz went to work for a consortium of Jewish charitable groups to help Holocaust survivors regain properties, homes, businesses, art works, Torah scrolls and other Jewish religious items that the Nazis had stolen from them. He also later assisted in negotiations that would lead to compensation to Nazi victims.
Ferencz, a father of four, published a two-volume book in 1980 titled, "An International Criminal Court: A Step Toward World Peace."
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The establishment of the International Criminal Court in The Hague was the fulfillment of a longstanding dream, his youngest daughter, Nina Dale, told those assembled at the post office naming.
'He spent the rest of his life fighting against crimes against humanity and trying to institute global peace,' she said. 'He had the notion to create an international criminal court where people who commit crimes against humanity could be prosecuted. Fifty years later, that came to fruition. And so for me, that's the man that I remember, because that's my father. He was not home for dinner, and he was not home for my birthday, but he was a great man.'
Ferencz's obituary in Harvard's publication recalled that, at the age of 91 in 2011, Ferencz delivered the closing prosecution speech of a Congolese warlord, the first ever heard at the international court. He repeated a line he used in his opening statement his at a Nazi trial 60 years earlier, saying, 'The case we present is a plea of humanity to law.'
He added: 'The hope of humankind is that compassion and compromise may replace the cruel and senseless violence of armed conflicts.'
Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at [e-mail] support our journalism. Subscribe today
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Delray Beach post office named for Nazi prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz