French court: Rail firm not liable for damages over Nazi transport
Court overturns landmark 2006 verdict ordering state rail company to pay compensation to Jewish man's family.
By ReutersA French court on Tuesday struck down a ruling that had ordered state rail operator SNCF to pay compensation to the family of a Jewish man transported to a transit camp in Nazi-occupied France.
Judges in an administrative appeals court in the southwestern city of Bordeaux ruled the administrative courts were not competent to rule on SNCF's legal liability in the case.
The appeal, which overturned a landmark verdict in June last year, could affect hundreds of other potential lawsuits against SNCF by victims of wartime deportations or their families.
A court last year ordered the SNCF and the French government to pay 61,000 euros to the family of Georges Lipietz, a Polish-born Jew arrested by French police and taken by train to a transit camp near Paris in 1944.
Some 76,000 Jews were arrested in France during World War II and transported in appalling conditions in railway boxcars to concentration camps such as Auschwitz, where most died.
The SNCF, which has received 1,800 requests for compensation since the ruling, said it had been forced to obey the orders of the government of the time.
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"When will enough BE enough? I`m pretty sure you will sue the earth for being there when some family member perished." It will never be enough. Never. We will never forgive you. I will never forgive you. Every day I think how you let us perish; how you let children die; how you took over our property, without saying a word. Yes, we will sue the earth, indeed, it is amazing that the earth even could tolerate what happened. The ghosts of every single Jewish child, woman, and man who perished will haunt you till there is human race. The ghosts of the French resistance fighers, the catholic priests who protected Jews, of the gypsies, of the homosexuals, and all the others who were tortured and killed will haunt you. Don't even dare ask when it is going to be enough!!!!!!!! Never. Ever.
When will enough BE enough? I'm pretty sure you will sue the earth for being there when some family member perished.
I completely disagree with you. The French should pay the families that were affected. Even though my grandfather won't come back, the least the French could do is to pay the families who will mourn their losses for the rest of their lives. The SNCF should fess up and compensate immediately. Shame on France.
I agree with the latter ruling. E 61,000 won't bring back the dead. It's crazy to demand compensation from every party involved, it's just too much. It won't happen again, not in France and probably no where else in Europe, so the warning value in compensation is negligible. We mourn for the dead, but we also have to get on with our lives.