France - Fined For Wartime Transport Of Jews

France - A French court ordered the state and railway operator SNCF to pay fines for their role in the deportation of Jews during World War Two, a lawyer for the SNCF said. Alain Lipietz, a Greens European Parliament deputy, and his sister Helene had sued SNCF for transporting their father and three relatives to a wartime transit camp that sent Jews off to Nazi concentration camps.

The French state could not have been unaware that transportation to the Drancy transit camp near Paris was a "prelude to deportation" to concentration camps, lawyer Yves Baudelot quoted the judges as saying. The SNCF and the French state were ordered to pay total fines of some 60,000 euros ($77,000) to the plaintiffs.

"I'm amazed by the ruling. I can't understand it," Baudelot said, adding the railway could not be held responsible for the transportation because it had been forced to cooperate with German occupying forces during the war. "The SNCF had no liberty of manoeuvre. The (Nazis) told the SNCF by letter that they had to do everything the German authorities wanted, and if someone refused, they would be shot," He said.

Baudelot said his client would appeal against the verdict.