Holocaust abettors must be held liable
I am a child of the Holocaust, one of the few fortunate ones. I was 8 years old when the Nazis took my family from our home in Germany to Gurs, a concentration camp in France. More than 60 years later, I have vivid memories of that trip — the beginning of a harrowing journey that would forever change my life and the world.
Before we boarded the French trains, the Nazis searched everyone. If you had any money or valuables, you were required to give them up. If you disobeyed, you were shot. I saw people killed for simply trying to keep their dearest family possessions.
Following my confinement at Gurs, I was transferred to another concentration camp. Eventually, I was taken in by OSE (Oeuvre de Secours Aux Enfants), a mutual aid organization. It rescued children from camps and placed us in OSE homes.
When Adolf Hitler's advances got closer, I was moved to a convent. Ultimately, I was able to leave France for London before coming to the United States when I was 15. My parents were not so fortunate; they perished at Auschwitz.
Today, I am a citizen of this great country. I live by its laws and honor its ideals. A fundamental American principle is that every person has the right to seek redress for wrongdoing in our courts. Sadly, I have come to learn of an exception to this rule.
I am one of more than 600 individuals suing the French national railroad — Société nationale chemins de fer Francais (SNCF) — for its World War II role in deporting Jews and other "undesirables" from our homes and delivering us to concentration camps.
The old adage about the Nazis and their collaborators — "the trains ran on time" — was true. SNCF deported more than 75,000 people, including 168 U.S. and Canadian pilots, to concentration camps aboard trains marked with a "Da" for "Trains of David."
Many French citizens and companies courageously resisted the demands of the Nazis. SNCF did not. Instead, it provided excellent service, reserving enough cars to fulfill demand and maintaining rail stock to prevent escapes. SNCF collaborated and assisted the Nazis, willingly and freely. And it got paid, per head, per kilometer.
SNCF has never denied it transported so many to death camps, or that it profited from the operations. Unlike so many other Nazi-era collaborators, SNCF has not taken any steps to make financial reparations to its victims or to acknowledge its culpability.
I believe SNCF must be held responsible for its actions, which were violations of international law. So I turned to the American courts, assuming our legal system would finally allow for some justice. Instead, I found that path blocked by a U.S. law that shields SNCF from liability.
The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) of 1976 was enacted to limit immunity for a government's public acts, not its private, commercial ones. However, the law also grants immunity to corporations whose shares are owned by a government.
The French government owns the shares of SNCF. Therefore, SNCF – one of the 500 largest companies in the world, selling more than $100 million worth of Eurail passes and other travel services each year in the United States – has immunity. We were not allowed to sue SNCF in U.S. courts. The result: a Nazi collaborator is avoiding all accountability. This is wrong.
Fortunately, there are members of Congress seeking to close this unintended loophole. H.R. 3713 would permit us to have our day in court. I hope more members of Congress will support this important bill.
We want accountability, including the opportunity to review SNCF's archives. And we want SNCF to compensate us, and the heirs of those no longer with us, for the crimes it committed and the profit it made from those crimes. In this country, is it too much to ask that we have the chance to hold SNCF responsible in a court of law?
I am now 75. Time is running out for one last measure of jus.tice, and I hope Congress will act.
