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TechnoratiFrench rail company to show Nazi deportation files to US
France's state rail company is to give US authorities details of its role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps after California lawmakers made disclosure a conditions for bidding to build a high-speed railway in the state.
"Twenty years ago we opened all our archives... we are going to open all that to the Americans," the chairman of the SNCF railway company, Guillaume Pepy, on Europe 1 radio.
The SNCF is making a joint bid with French construction firm Alstom to build a 34-billion-euro high-speed track from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
The California state legislature last week voted to demand that bidders supply full details of any involvement in the deportations between 1942 and 1944, and details of any reparations paid.
The move was clearly aimed at the SNCF, whose trains were used by German occupying forces to take Jews to concentration camps.
Democrat lawmaker Bob Blumenfield, who moved the bill, said the SNCF "refuses to accept responsibility for its role in the Holocaust."
The company insists it was forced to take part in the deportations and railworkers joined the resistance to the occupation.
"We should not forget one thing: the SNCF, the railway workers were under the yoke of the Nazi occupiers, threatened with death ... 2,000 railway workers were executed by the Nazis," Pepy said.
But he said the Californian demand for full disclosure is "legitimate" and the company has "nothing to hide".
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