On September 27, 1947, opening arguments were heard in the proceeding that many historians have described as “the largest murder trial in history.”

Officially known as “the United States of America v. Otto Ohlendorf, et al” and commonly referred to as the Einsatzgruppen Trial, it was the ninth of 12 criminal trials now collectively known as the Nuremberg Trials, and although overshadowed by other more prominent prosecutions there, is historically significant because it marked the first time the term “genocide” was ever used in a legal context within a courtroom.

The Nuremberg Trials are among the most studied in history, and this now famous series of military tribunals presided over by the victorious allied powers after World War II, had a distinctly Sullivan County connection.

Many who closely follow Sullivan County history know that veteran Hurleyville attorney Moses Kove, who had previously been best known for representing local hoodlum Jack Drucker in the Walter Sage murder trial in Sullivan County in 1944, made a name for himself at Nuremberg. But few can probably name another Sullivan County native who was an indispensable part of the American legal team there.

Her name was Alma McLay, and when she died in April of 2017 at the age of 97, she was the last surviving member of the United States’ prosecuting team at the trials.

She was born Alma Florence Soller on December 28, 1919, and grew up on a chicken farm just outside Narrowsburg. Her parents, George and Margaret, made and sold donuts, two for a nickel, to supplement the farm income, and became quite well known among Boy Scouts from the nearby Ten Mile River Scout Camps.

David Malatsky, who has created many of the exhibits there, said the Ten Mile River Scout Museum not only has an exhibit honoring the Sollers and their donut farm because of the role it played in so many of the campers’ experience, but went so far as to commission a patch recognizing the couple.

Alma trained as a secretary and went to work for the Department of Defense in 1941. She had spent two years working for the U.S. Government in Alaska before returning to the Pentagon, where she was summoned by Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who was heading up an 18-person team to handle the prosecutions at Nuremberg. He had personally selected her, and although she was reluctant at first to commit to the traveling necessary to take part, she eventually agreed to join the team.

In reporting her death, The Los Angeles Times reported that it was Jackson’s “endearing personality” that had won her over.

“McLay later told her son Derek that she recalled asking Jackson about the swing set in his backyard,” The Times reported. “’Do you have grandkids?’ she wondered. No, he said, the swing set was for him. ‘That’s where I do my thinking,’”

McLay became the documentarian for what The Times called, “the world’s first international criminal tribunal.” She attended the London Conference with Jackson from June through August of 1945, and played a critical behind the scenes role in managing the administrative load as the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union developed the framework for the groundbreaking trials.

McLay then accompanied Jackson to Nuremberg, to document the proceedings, but the most significant part of her work would not actually take place in London or in Germany.

After spending many long hours recording in shorthand the multi-lingual testimonies of the Nazis on trial and the raw evidence of their atrocities, McLay was sent back to Washington by Jackson to begin the arduous task of assembling, cross-referencing, and editing the mountain of documentary evidence presented during the trials.

The resulting publication, that became known as the Nuremberg Red Set, gave the world the first complete look at the scope of the Holocaust. “The facts in this circumstance are so horrific, no one would believe the facts unless they had access to the documents,” Jackson reportedly said.

Following her work with the Pentagon, McLay moved to Rancho Palos Verdes, CA in 1954 with her husband, Stanley, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force. She retired from government work in 1984, and died in Torrance, CA in 2017. She was survived by her son, Derek, a daughter, also named Alma, and three grandchildren.

In the story about her death, The Los Angeles Times quoted John Q. Barrett, who at the time was a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, and was writing a biography of Robert H. Jackson. Barrett told the Times that McLay, “a working woman in a male dominated bureaucracy, likely never got the full credit she deserved for her work transcribing the testimony, often in various languages and in shorthand, and collating the evidence.”

While the little grey house that was her parents’ beloved donut farm still stands on Route 97 south of Narrowsburg—albeit having seen better days-- and the Ten Mile River Scout Museum patch ensures George and Margaret Soller will not soon be forgotten, Alma Soller McLay’s most tangible legacy is her monumental work organizing and editing “The Red Set,” a record of atrocities almost too horrific to believe.

John Conway is the Sullivan County Historian. Email him at jconway52@hotmail.com.