Following on our earlier post:

FRENCH STATE AND SNCF GUILTY OF COLLUSION IN DEPORTING JEWS

PARIS June 7, 2006 (Guardian) - In a historic judgment, the French state and the state railway company SNCF [Société Nationale des Chemins de Fers Français] were found guilty yesterday of colluding in the deportation of Jews during the second world war and ordered to pay compensation to the family of two victims.

The Green MEP Alain Lipietz and his sister, Hélène, brought the case on behalf of their father, who was transported from Toulouse to the Drancy wartime transit camp outside Paris. It is the latest embarrassment for France, which for decades refused to face up to accusations of collaboration in the Holocaust during the Nazi occupation.

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.

This is all well and good as far as it goes, but why go no farther? How does the court manage to concede all the particulars of the crime and fail to name it? Just what is racial mass-murder if not a crime against humanity?

The lawyer for the SNCF said yesterday that the company would appeal against the ruling. He said the railway could not be held responsible for the transportation because it had been forced to cooperate with German occupying forces.

Oh, no. No collaborators here, just straitened French businessmen trying to make an honest sou.

PFFT (What is this?): Inching toward justice 3 | Rayonnement français 0

Bonjour,

1500 cheminots de la SNCF fusillés par les Nazis ,leurs familles souvent déportées et mortes dans les conditions abominables des camps...
Du haut de la dignité dont ont fait preuve Henry Ford , Lindbergh etc , les Yanks sont effectivement en position de donner des leçons de morale comme à leur habitude ...
Et ceci ans compter la trahison pro-allemande de Wilson dès 1918/1919.

A gerber ....

Good luck to your country in Irak !

Good