French state-owned railway Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF) is to compensate Holocaust survivors three years after formally admitting it transported thousands of Jews to their deaths during the second world war, reports the International Business Times.
However, survivors believe the decision owes less to assuaging any guilt than to hard business.
SNCF subsidiary Keolis is hoping to secure a $6.5bn contract to construct a 16-mile railway link called the "Purple Line" connecting Maryland suburbs, but local Holocaust survivors have demanded SNCF make reparations for its actions in the war.
During the second world war the SNCF transported 76,000 French Jews to concentration camps. Only 3,000 survived. SNCF made a formal apology in 2011 but had avoided making reparations in the United States, insisting it was coerced by the Nazis and in any case was exempt because of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.
Leo Bretholz, 92, who escaped from a train on its way to Auschwitz in 1942, moved to Maryland and was angered that a subsidiary of the company now stands to profit from revenue received from local tax-payers. Shortly before his death (on 8 March 2014) he organised a petition which has already attracted 150,000 signatures. He also wrote an editorial in the Baltimore Sun.
Read more of this report from the International Business Times.