French Railway Criticized in U.S. for WWII Role

(AP)  The French national railway's hope to bid on the first high-speed tracks in the United States is running into resistance from Holocaust survivors because of the company's role in transporting Jews to Nazi death camps.

One of those leading the charge against the railway is Florida resident Rosette Goldstein, who says her father was taken away by French authorities, shoved in a cattle train and delivered to his death during World War II. Goldstein plans to voice her opposition on behalf of many Holocaust survivors to the railway Thursday when the Florida Department of Transportation holds a public meeting in Orlando on the $2.6 billion high-speed rail project, which would connect Tampa and Orlando.

Goldstein and others - including legislators - want the railway, known as the SNCF, to formally apologize for its role in the war, give full access to its records and make reparations.

"Why does this company deserve my tax dollars when they cooperated with the Nazis and let their trains transport people to be murdered?" said Goldstein, 71, who lives in Boca Raton.

SNCF stands for Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais. The company has argued that it had no control over operations when France was under Nazi occupation from 1940 to 1944 and was under orders to transport Jews to death camps. The firm also has said the French government has made an apology and offered reparations, although survivors contend the company itself has never made such amends.

"We plan to have a full disclosure of our records and complete transparency," said Peter Kelly, an American-based attorney for SNCF. "The fact is many railway workers were killed by Nazis, many were bullied and the company was under control of an occupied government."

Not everybody accepts that explanation.

Rositta Ehrlich Kenigsberg, vice president at the Holocaust Documentation & Education Center in South Florida, said corporations such as SNCF have long used coercion as an excuse. She said SNCF profited greatly from the transports, charging per person and kilometer.

"Being a collaborator and saying you were coerced is not acceptable," she said. "Nobody bought that at the Nuremberg Trials, Rwanda, Darfur and other genocides. You can't help murder people and then just say, 'Well, we were coerced."'

In California, lawmakers passed a bill last month that forces companies hoping to compete for a piece of California's $45 billion high-speed rail project to disclose whether they transported Holocaust victims. SNCF is also hoping for that project and said it has no problems with the bill.

Florida lawmakers are also stepping into the fray.

U.S. Rep. Ron Klein, a Democrat who represents portions of Broward and Palm Beach counties, a district with a high Jewish population, said he was writing a letter to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist asking for some of the same things Goldstein wants.

"This was a company that was taken and used by the Nazis that profited from the deaths of tens of thousands of people," said Klein, who is also Jewish and serves on the board at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

SNCF employs 175,000 people and operates 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) of high-speed lines in France, and is generally respected as a heavyweight in French industry. But the company has had a hard time erasing its past.

Between 1941 and 1944, 3,000 wagons - originally designed for the transportation of cattle - were used by the SNCF to transport Jews to Nazi death camps, according to a study by French historian Christian Bachelier, ordered by SNCF in 1996. The study points out that there were acts of resistance, but they were sparse, isolated and mostly by workers - not SNCF administration.

SNCF is among about 30 companies hoping to bid for the Florida contract. Transportation officials are going through paperwork the companies have submitted.

Plans for high-speed rails were announced by President Barack Obama in January. Florida would get $1.25 billion in stimulus money and trains are expected to begin operating at speeds up to 168 mph by 2015.

At the very least, SNCF faces big challenges trying to win U.S bids.

"The court of public opinion may already have convicted them, and politicians don't want to be called soft on the Holocaust or anything," said Winston Nagan, a professor of international law and human rights at the University of Florida.

Goldstein and others whose families were wiped out have vowed to raise their voices.

Goldstein was 4 years old when she hid with another family on a farm outside Paris as her father enlisted at a nearby labor camp to avoid internment. He often sneaked away at night to see her, then one night he didn't come.

She said he was transported by an SNCF train - Convoy No. 64 - to Auschwitz, then Buchenwald and finally Langenstein-Zwieberge, where he was killed by Nazis just five days before the camp was liberated by Americans.

"If SNCF had resisted even a little, more people could have been spared," she said. "What's worse, is the way they've ignored us. Is it so hard to say, 'I'm sorry?' I'm one of the youngest survivors - soon there's not going to be any. We have to make sure people don't forget what happened."

[GTR5]

First, thousands of French railroad workers were shot and killed by the Germans in WWII to control thier activities in running the railroad. They had no choice, work as told or be shot. The jews today just want more money from somebody. So lets talk about the attack on the USS Liberty, a US ship where many US sailors were killed on 8 June 1967. When are the jews going to pay for this?

[endurorob_5]

brianbwb2015 September 2, 2010 9:11 AM EDT
Be tired, we don't care.

Slavery is still affecting the disadvantaged generations, the "Indians" are still dead, and the few survivors still have been deprived of their way of life, and you, still enjoying the "advantages" from the crimes of your forbears, are just as responsible as those who stole.

The "vast majority" of you still "own" stolen land, receive dividends from crooked holdings, and still benefit from discriminatory practices that were once an institutionalized part of our governing, while trying to fight to prevent a more equitable recompense for those more deserving than you.




By the way, your kind care nothing of equtitable. You are only concerned with supremecy.

[endurorob_5]

brianbwb2015 September 2, 2010 9:11 AM EDT
Be tired, we don't care.

Slavery is still affecting the disadvantaged generations, the "Indians" are still dead, and the few survivors still have been deprived of their way of life, and you, still enjoying the "advantages" from the crimes of your forbears, are just as responsible as those who stole.

The "vast majority" of you still "own" stolen land, receive dividends from crooked holdings, and still benefit from discriminatory practices that were once an institutionalized part of our governing, while trying to fight to prevent a more equitable recompense for those more deserving than you.

Be tired, Be sick and tired, be totally fed up. This is good.

It is good because your fatigue means absolutely nothing, until such recompense goes beyond mere fake apologies, and becomes actual equitable inclusion for all participants.


Try living in the present.

[novamba]

I can think of many reasons for American's protesting any French project on our soil, including France's total disdain for the US, and the constant American bad mouthing, but this? This rail is not being built in Israel. The French should stand their ground....for once. too bad for to those that want an apology, but President Obama is not the president of that French rail company.

[tsigili]

When are we going to stop going decades into the past, about matters? That is simply stupid. Stop looking for past wrongs, and look to making the future a better place for all.

[Turbidite]

And Zyklon B was developed by Fritz Haber, a German Jewish chemist and Nobel laureate. What to do?

[lilbear925]

As far as I know, the new high speed railway will not pass near any Nazi death camps in the US, so GET OVER IT! The same management is NOT in charge, nor are the Nazis ramrodding this railroad to do something it cannot control. Maybe this woman can also boycot Italian, German and French products across the board. WWII is over and hardly anyone is still alive who participated in it -- or if they are, they probably don't run big companies!

[djseavy]

When are we going to stop hanging our heads in shame and stop apologizing or demanding apologies for events in distant history? I'm tired of hearing apologies to blacks for slavery, Indians for land taken away, on and on adinfinidum? The vast majority of us had nothing to do with any of those events - so it's about time to move on.

[wyodutch]

Holocaust, Incorporated must be running low on funds and is looking for a new Golden Goose to extort money from. It's always about money... always.
.
As Harry Truman said... "The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as Displaced Persons as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog."

[cgirltruck]

I agree with those that are vocallizing the "it's really time to move on" and my question is why are we going outside of this country for this job? With so many out of work, why aren't we doing this job? Another quetion...there are many companies here in the US that made money doing business with the Nazi regime, why isn't this woman going after them, not to mention the fact that our government at the time knew exactly what Hitler was doing and chose not to do anything to help stop him sooner.

[AlwaysSmiling]

The short answer is we're going out to the people who are successfully creating and running high speed rails. If you were building a plane, wouldn't you try to get the people who know how to do it to help?

The actual construction will most likely be done by Americans, and the running of the rail will be done by Americans. They'll just work for a French Company.