May 15



FRANCE:

Suit Accusing French Railways of Holocaust Role Is Thrown Out


A Paris court today rejected a lawsuit charging France's national railroad
company with the equivalent of complicity in crimes against humanity for
deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during Germany's wartime occupation of
France. The court ruled that a 10-year statute of limitations applied in
this case.

The plaintiff, Kurt Werner Schaechter, 82, an Austrian-born French Jew,
had sued the National Railroad Service for a symbolic one euro for
deporting his parents, both of whom died in death camps. After a judge
read a summary of the ruling at the Palais de Justice this afternoon, Mr.
Schaechter said he would appeal the verdict.

"I don't think this is a glorious day for France," Mr. Schaechter, a
retired musical instruments salesman, said. "They always want to hide
things. I think the face of France is a bit dirty today."

The case dates back to 1991 when Mr. Schaechter discovered and illegally
photocopied thousands of wartime documents held in the French National
Archives in Toulouse. Some of these documents detailed the railroad's
active role in organizing the deportation of some 76,000 Jews from French
concentration camps to Germany. Of those deported, only around 2,500
survived.

In the suit, Mr. Schaechter's lawyer, Joseph Roubache, argued that the
company went beyond orders issued by either France's collaborationist
Vichy government or German occupying forces. Specifically, he charged that
the railroad tried to disguise the purpose of the train convoys by using
code names, closed and locked the doors of the rail cars and discouraged
volunteers from giving the deportees food and water.

Mr. Schaechter brought the case under the civil code, because a 1994
revision of the penal code allowing plaintiffs to bring criminal charges
against companies or institutions did not apply retroactively.

The two-member Paris court ruled today, however, that a case could be
brought under the civil code only within 10 years of the offense in
question, in this case the deaths of Mr. Schaechter's parents.

"They have used a very elemental, simplistic argument," Mr. Roubache said
today. "They have not responded to our arguments. They have chosen the
easy path. Crimes against humanity should not be subject to proscription
under either civil or penal law."

Mr. Roubache said that, in his view, the 10-year statute of limitations
should apply from 1991 when Mr. Schaechter obtained the necessary
information to bring the case.

Mr. Schaechter filed his suit within 10 years of discovering the documents
incriminating the national rail service, although the case was not heard
until March 19 of this year.

(source: New York Times)