France to pay USD 60 mn to US for Nazi rail deportations

In a landmark deal, France will pay USD 60 million to the United States to be shared among American and foreign nationals deported to Nazi death camps on French trains in World War II.
The agreement, unveiled today and which has been at least two years in the making, should now remove obstacles to the French rail firm SNCF seeking to bid on major railway contracts in the US, including in the state of Maryland.
"The US and France have reached a historic agreement for substantial compensation in connection with the deportations from France during the Holocaust," US negotiator Stuart Eizenstat said.

"This is another measure of justice for the harms of one of history's darkest eras," he told reporters, adding it was a good example of the close US-French partnership.
Several thousand people could now be eligible for compensation, including nationals of Israel and Canada as well as Americans who were deported from France to the death camps some 70 years ago.
During the German occupation of France, the Nazi regime deported almost 76,000 Jews to concentration camps in French freight cars between 1942 and 1944.

Only around 3,000 survived.
Maryland lawmakers had demanded that SNCF compensate the victims before being allowed to join a bidding process on a 25-kilometer public-private light rail project worth nearly USD 3 billion for local projects and introduced bills to that effect.

But the French rail firm had protested that it had no choice as it was simply a "cog in the Nazi extermination machine."
The French government has already paid out some USD 60 million to French nationals who were victims of the Holocaust under a scheme set up in 1946. And this new deal will not be open to French nationals and their survivors.
Eizenstat said the deal was "recognition" by France that US citizens, Israelis and others had not been eligible for the same payments as French nationals.
The deal is due to be signed on Monday by Eizenstat and French ambassador on human rights Patrizianna Sparacino-Thiellay.

Eizenstat told reporters today that Paris would pay a $60 million lump sum to Washington to compensate the survivors or their spouses and heirs.