California: Rail companies to disclose role in Holocaust
New bill facing approval will force railway companies applying for contract to run Los Angeles-San Francisco high speed link to confess to involvement in transporting Jews to Nazi camps in WWII
France's national rail company may be forced to come clean about its part in the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust in order to win a contract to run the new $45 billion high speed link between Los Angeles and San Francisco, the British Telegraph reported on Monday.
An American assemblyman from California is pushing for a bill that would force competing railway operators for the project to disclose their involvement in transporting people to Nazi camps and whether or not they compensated the victims.
The Telegraph reported that the new Holocaust Survivor Responsibility Act was approved by eight members of the housing and transportation committee in June and is expected to pass the California legislature.
According to the report, the measure will also affect rail firms from Germany, Japan, Spain, and Italy that were involved in transporting prisoners during World War II.
However, the bid is specifically aimed at SNCF, the French rail operator, which transported some 75,000 Jews to Nazi camps. In its defense the company argued that it was acting under the orders of the French authorities at the time, and had no autonomy under an occupation government.
"SNCF provided the trains, personnel and logistics that sent thousands of Jews, American soldiers and others to concentration camps. SNCF was paid by the Nazis for the deportations per head, per kilometer," Bob Blumenfield, who introduced the bill, said.
Accepting responsibility
California is home to some 30 Holocaust survivors, most of whom are in the 90s. "There could be a train made by the very same company that took them to the camps less than a few miles from their house," Blumenfield noted.
The report quoted Bernard Caron, an 83-year-old concentration camp survivor who lost his family at Auschwitz, speaking before the California Senate transport committee: "They shipped us under the filthiest conditions with only one pot of water per rail car. For the last 65 years SNCF has never denied it, but won't accept responsibility for it."
SNCF's American representative told the committee that the company cooperated with German authorities under the threat of death to employees and their families.
Nevertheless, the company said it intends to fully comply with the bill. SCNF is expected to release a 1,200-page report commissioned from an independent historian in the 1990s proving its assets were under complete control of the Germans.
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