US, France strike deal over SNCF role in the Holocaust

Hundreds of Holocaust survivors who were deported to death camps by France's state rail company, SNCF, during the Nazi occupation will be entitled to compensation from a $60 million (49-million-euro) US-French fund.

The breakthrough followed at least two years of negotiations. Thousands of people could be eligible for compensation, including nationals of Israel, Canada and the United States.

The announcement on Friday was part of a deal that would see Washington work to end lawsuits and other compensation claims in US courts against SNCF.

The French state-owned company had been bidding for lucrative high-speed rail and other contracts in US markets. However, some state legislators had sought to block SNCF because of its involvement in the Holocaust.

The French Foreign Ministry and US State Department jointly announced the accord for the compensation fund, which will be financed by Paris and managed by the US.

Paris had already paid more than $6 billion in compensation to French citizens and certain other deportees. The new fund will also provide money for thousands of spouses or descendants of Holocaust deportees who have since died.

SNCF transported around 76,000 French Jews to Nazi concentration camps, though experts still disagree on the state rail operator's degree of guilt. Only 3,000 survived.

The company argued that it had no effective control over its rail operations during the Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1944.

The French parliament will have to authorize each application for the Holocaust compensation, which could take months to be processed.

lw/mkg (AP, AFP)