French Railway Liable for Transporting Holocaust Victim to Death Camps

A French court in Toulose has held the French state and the state railway company SNCF liable for transporting a Holocaust victim to death camps near the end of the Second World War. As reported here,

The tribunal in Toulouse ordered the state and the SNCF to pay a total of €62,000 (£43,000) to the family for their deceased father, and to their uncle in recognition of the transportation of the brothers alongside their parents to the Drancy camp in 1944. The camp, which became known as the “antechamber of death” was a transit prison from which around 67,000 Jews were sent to the Nazi death camps.

In their ruling, the judges recognised the prejudice suffered by the victims and their confinement at the camp. They said their transportation amounted to an “act of negligence of the state’s responsibilities” because the state could not “obviously” ignore the fact that transportation to Drancy would normally mean subsequent removal to a Nazi death camp.

The judges found that the SNCF railway company never voiced “any objection” about transporting such prisoners. The journeys were classified as “third class tariffs” despite prisoners being transported in cattle trucks and SNCF continued to ask for payment of the bills after France was liberated from the Nazis. But the judges did not uphold the plaintiffs’ charge that the actions of the French state and SNCF amounted to crimes against humanity.