Eli Rosenbaum is the Director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy at the U.S. Justice Department. He was also recently appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to lead DOJ’s efforts investigating war crimes in Ukraine. Rosenbaum formerly directed DOJ’s Office of Special Investigations, where he spent nearly four decades prosecuting Nazi war criminals.

Peter was born in Budapest in 1941. His father aspired to be a lawyer but could not attend law school because he was Jewish. Instead, Peter’s father was conscripted into a forced labor battalion in the Hungarian armed service, where he later died. His mother supported the family with her hat-making business until German forces invaded Hungary in March, 1944. They were forced to find refuge with a family friend until a neighbor denounced them. After being arrested and jailed, Peter’s mother escaped and they moved into an apartment building, protected by the Swiss embassy. In October 1944, the Hungarian government began a reign of terror against the Jews in Budapest. Peter and his mother moved to the Budapest ghetto and spent most of their time in the basement during frequent air raids. After weeks of fierce fighting, the Budapest ghetto was liberated by the Soviet Army in January 1945.

Peter grew up in Communist Hungary and participated in the design of the first Hungarian-made computer. He defected to the United States in 1980 and spent his career working for the federal government as a contractor, including at the Department of Justice, where he supported the FBI’s Image Restoration Project. Mr. Gorog also worked at the Department of Defense, the Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, where he worked on the James Webb Space Telescope.

Born in 1936, Manny grew up in Hungary. The impact of the Holocaust came later in the war years, through unexpected deportation to Bergen Belsen and family separation. In 1945, Manny and his mother immigrated to Palestine, where they were reunited with Manny’s father. They then moved to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where Manny attended the University of Pennsylvania. He was a practicing psychotherapist in Maryland until his retirement in 2014.