French national rail authority ordered to pay compensation to WWII victims

French national rail authority ordered to pay compensation to WWII victims

The court in Toulouse, southwest France, ordered the state and the SNCF rail network to pay damages of 79,500 dollars for deporting and interning the four people named in a lawsuit, the family's lawyer, Remi Rouquette said.

European Green Party lawmaker Alain Lipietz, his sister Helene and other family members brought the suit on behalf of four family members taken to a Nazi transit camp at Drancy near Paris in May 1944.

The four were transported in cattle cars by the SNCF train authority from southwest France to Drancy and remained there for several months until the camp was freed in July 1944, according to the lawsuit. Drancy was a stopover point for Jews deported to Nazi death camps including Auschwitz, the AP reports.