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Holocaust: US fight for SNCF reparation goes on

Families of Holocaust victims in the US continued their fight this week to force France's state owned rail firm SNCF to pay compensation over its role in transporting Jews to Nazi death camps. US lawmakers are threatening to derail an SNCF bid for a major public contract.

Holocaust: US fight for SNCF reparation goes on
France state-owned railway is facing big problems in the US for its role in the Holocaust. Photo: OliverN5/Flickr

Seventy years after the Holocaust, Rosette Goldstein and many fellow Americans are still seeking reparations from French rail firm SNCF for transporting their loved ones to Nazi death camps.

Goldstein, now 75, was in Maryland on Monday to testify before state lawmakers, who have threatened to prevent SNCF bidding for a major public contract over its role in the World War II genocide.

Clutching a register of those transported by France's state-owned rail company, an emotional Goldstein showed where her father's name was entered.

"My father was taken by truck to the railway station and put on an SNCF train and taken to Drancy," Goldstein explained, with tears in her eyes. "He was taken on Convoy 64, December the 7th, 1943 to Auschwitz.

"I really would like them to come forward and say, 'I am so sorry for your loss,'" the petite woman said in a choked voice.

Holocaust survivor Leo Bretholz, who was deported on a French train, had also been set to testify at the hearing in Maryland, but he died on Saturday before he could give his account.

Bretholz, who escaped in October 1942 by jumping from a train headed for Auschwitz, had gathered 150,000 signatures for a petition asking SNCF to compensate victims and their families.

His campaign is supported by Maryland lawmaker Kirill Reznik, who says he holds the SNCF directly responsible for transporting Holocaust victims to the Nazi camps.

"We have an invoice issued by SNCF that required payment per head, per kilometer" for each prisoner transported, he said.

Reznik has proposed a law requiring the French rail company to compensate victims before they would be allowed to compete for state contracts in Maryland.

If the bill is approved, it would ban SNCF and its subsidiary, Keolis America, from bidding on a $6 billion public-private project to build and run a 16-mile (25-kilometer) light rail line in Maryland.

"We cannot have this company operating this purple line without (…) taking steps to close wounds that they have caused," Reznik said.

Under France's Vichy Regime, the SNCF deported some 76,000 Jews to concentration camps in freight cars between 1942 and 1944. Only around 3,000 of them survived the war.

"They should finally have to pay reparation at least per person," said Ellen Lightman, a 67-year-old grand-daughter of a Holocaust victim who attended the hearing at Maryland's legislature.

"Otherwise, whatever they have done in words is just air," she said.

SNCF does not deny it played a role in transporting Jews to their deaths, but the company says it had no choice.

"Yes, we were involved. No, we will never forget," said Alain Leray, president of SNCF America, as he testified on Monday.

Leray, who noted that his own parents had fled occupied France to Algeria to avoid the Holocaust, said the genocide was also "a part of my family heritage."

But he denounced what he called a "misrepresentation of established historical facts."

"SNCF didn't deport anyone; the Nazis did," he insisted, saying the company "was forced to be a cog in the extermination Nazi machine."

By his side, Holocaust survivor Emil Levy, 92, testified on SNCF's behalf, saying he doesn't "believe in revenge" and that monetary compensation now would "do nothing for survivors."

Leray also said responsibility — and any eventual compensation — should ultimately come from the French government.

In that vein, he expressed hope for negotiations launched in early February between Paris and Washington over compensation for US victims transported by SNCF during between 1942 and 1944.

The negotiations concern the cases of Americans who don't meet current French criteria for compensation, covering citizens and residents of France only through September 1, 1939.

Around 250 Americans would be affected by the negotiations, according to the Coalition for Holocaust Rail Justice.

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ENVIRONMENT

French trains ditch plastic water bottles

French national train operator SNCF has announced it will no longer sell water in plastic bottles on its services, saying the move would reduce the waste from roughly two million drinks.

French train bars will no longer be able to see plastic bottles of water.
French train bars will no longer be able to see plastic bottles of water. Photo: BERTRAND LANGLOIS / AFP.

The plastic packaging will be replaced with recyclable cardboard for still water and aluminium for sparkling.

“Plastic is no longer fantastic,” head of consumer travel operations at the SNCF, Alain Krakovitch, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.

France has gradually increased restrictions on single-use packaging to help reduce waste amid growing evidence about the impact of plastic on sea life in particular.

The government announced on Monday that plastic packaging will be banned for nearly all fruit and vegetables from January next year.

The environment ministry said that 37 percent of fruit and vegetables were sold with plastic packaging, and only the most fragile produce such as strawberries will be given an exemption on the ban until 2026.

“We use an outrageous amount of single-use plastic in our daily lives,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it was working to cut back “the use of throwaway plastic and boost its substitution by other materials or reusable and recyclable packaging.”

Last year, France passed a wide-ranging “circular economy” law to combat waste that forbids retailers from destroying unsold clothes and will ban all single-use plastic containers by 2040.

Paris city authorities announced this week that they were aiming to eliminate all plastic from state day-care centres, canteens and retirement homes by 2026.

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