US appeals court upholds dismissal of Holocaust suits
CHICAGO - Holocaust survivors and heirs of victims can't sue Hungary's national bank and railway in the US for the theft of cash, art and other assets from Hungarian Jews until they first exhaust their legal options in Hungary itself, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel of the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a lower court's dismissal of the lawsuits filed in the Northern District of Illinois in 2010.
More than 500,000 Hungarian Jews died in the Holocaust during World War II, many forced to buy tickets for trains that carried them to Nazi concentration camps outside Hungary. The value of their losses ran into the billions, plaintiffs say.
