On Ben Ferencz’s website, his last book Parting Words is introduced as follows:

How many people do you know grew up as a poor immigrant in America during the Great Depression, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day, were present at the liberation of concentration camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Flossenburg, held leading Nazis to account at the Nuremberg trials and have fought for an International Criminal Court to hold war criminals to account the world over?

Now you know one.

Benjamin Ferencz turned 100 in 2020. In this extraordinary book, he shares his remarkable life story and the nine humble, compelling and life-affirming lessons he’s learned along the way that we can all harness for ourselves.

https://benferencz.org/books/parting-words-10-little-lessons-for-a-remarkable-life/

This slender little book tells an amazing story of a truly incredible life, and it offers the gift of the lessons he learned while living it.

A man of humility, humour and wisdom, Ben Ferencz’s achievements belied his small stature and disavantaged background. His life mission was to help create a more peaceful and humane world. Despite endless disheartening news cycles, his optimism and hope never failed him.

Parting Words weaves together stories about his life, family, and work at home in the US and on the world stage, with some of the essential things he learned along the way. What I loved most is that these are not expressed in opaque, philosophical language, but as everyday easily understood phrases, and given alongside the circumstances that led him to this point of view. Some events were prosaic, everyday; others less so (like witnessing the horrors of the Nazi death camps, or helping establish the International Criminal Court.)

His nine key lessons touch on life circumstances, hopes and dreams, education, principles, life trajectories, truth, love, stamina, the future…and include:

• You don’t have to follow the crowd
• Learn where you are
• Choose to be good
• The path is always bumpy, never straight
• Always speak your truth, even if no one’s listening

Buy a copy; I promise you will not regret it.
Buy several copies, because I’m pretty sure you will want to press this book into many hands while saying, Read this! In fact, my husband bought an extra copy for our young teen grandson. It makes an ideal gift for a young person embarking on this business of life, and for anyone feeling jaded by theirs, or by the world around them.

Parting Words was written with Nadia Khomami and published by Sphere in 2020.