XPost: alt.revisionism, soc.culture.german, alt.conspiracy   
   From: 127.0.0.1@127.0.0.1   
      
   You would think after sixty years - they would have milked the holohoax for   
   all its worth, apparently not. Now they're going after France.   
      
      
   Holocaust Victims Sue France, State Rail Over Thefts   
      
   March 2 (Bloomberg) -- France's state-owned railway and a pension manager   
   for French civil servants stole cash, jewelry and other property from   
   75,000 Jews and tens of thousands of ``other undesirables'' deported to   
   Nazi concentration camps, ex-prisoners and their relatives claim in a   
   lawsuit filed in New York.   
      
   The plaintiffs are seeking damages from the French national railway, Societe   
   Nationale des Chemins de Fer; and pension manager Caisse des Depots et   
   Consignations. The government of France is also a defendant. The complaint   
   was filed on behalf of Holocaust victims detained in French holding camps   
   or transported to Nazi concentration camps on SNCF trains. Plaintiffs   
   include family members of former detainees and prisoners.   
      
   ``France wrongfully took money and other assets from plaintiffs when they   
   were interned at Drancy and other holding and transit camps while those   
   camps were under the control of the French government,'' the suit says.   
   ``The taking of property at the camps was organized and systematic.''   
      
   The suit, filed today in Manhattan federal court, is the latest to be   
   brought on behalf of Holocaust victims and their relatives. In earlier   
   litigation, German companies including Siemens AG and DaimlerChrysler AG   
   pledged to help finance a 10 billion deutsche-mark fund for Nazi-era   
   slave-laborers.   
      
   A telephone call to Agnes Von Der Muhll, the deputy press secretary at the   
   French embassy in Washington, wasn't immediately returned.   
      
   `Ran the Trains'   
      
   The suit was filed by 26 individual plaintiffs, including an American man   
   now living in Maryland who was shipped to Auschwitz from the French camps   
   and a French man whose mother was deported from a camp.   
      
   ``Everything she had with her was taken,'' the suit says.   
      
   The thefts often took place as deportees were loaded onto trains or at   
   holding camps, such as Drancy, that France operated, according to the suit.   
   The Nazis took control of Drancy in July 1943, the suit says.   
      
   ``SNCF assembled and ran the trains,'' the complaint says. Caisse des Depots   
   ``accepted, held, and is holding today property consisting of money taken   
   from the plaintiffs.''   
      
   The case is the third against a French business by Holocaust victims, said   
   Harriet Tamen, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The first, against French banks   
   accused of freezing Jewish accounts, led to the establishment in 2000 of   
   two settlement funds with assets totaling more than $70 million.   
      
   `Taking of Property'   
      
   The second, accusing SNCF of war crimes, was dismissed after a U.S. court   
   said the government railway had immunity from such claims. That court said   
   lawsuits like this one, alleging the ``taking of property,'' are allowed,   
   according to Tamen.   
      
   She couldn't offer an estimate of the damages being sought. ``We have no   
   idea because so many archives are closed to the public,'' Tamen said.   
      
   Set up in 1816 to restore public finances after the Napoleonic wars, Caisse   
   des Depots is a public custodian for tax-exempt savings funds collected   
   mostly by the post office and local savings banks. Caisse des Depots isn't   
   publicly traded.   
      
   It's also the largest shareholder in Cie de Saint-Gobain SA, Europe's No. 1   
   distributor of building materials, and the second- largest in Accor SA, the   
   world's No. 4 hotelier. It owns a stake in Belgian financial services   
   company Dexia SA.   
      
   The suit is Freund v. Republic of France, 06-CV-1637, Southern District of   
   New York.   
   http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=ab95XsmV84SI&refer=europe   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)