by Marc Masurovsky
In a news item published by“Tablet” on 21 October 2025, the American museum association (AAMD) gained an unusual ally in its fight against renewal of the HEAR Act—the French parastatal company, SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer). It gained notoriety a decade ago for its role during WWII in assisting in the deportation of Jews from German-occupied France to death camps in Eastern Europe. The crime was worsened by evidence that the company had been paid for each Jewish man, woman, and child that its cattle cars contained on their journey to death. The end result was a "global settlement" that the SNCF signed in 2014 to satisfy claims for reparations filed by Holocaust survivors and their heirs.
Why on earth would SNCF support the AAMD in its fight against renewal of the HEAR Act which is exclusively about art restitution claims filed against American museums? The HEAR Act has nothing to do with the deportation of human beings. Hence, the two should not mix and even be in the same room. Odd to say the least.
Nicole Wizman, author of the Tablet article, suggests that SNCF fears that if the HEAR Act is renewed, its emphasis on the elimination of legal technical defenses (laches, statutes of limitations, etc.) might make it more vulnerable to lawsuits from the heirs of Holocaust victims that its trains had ferried to their death for the German genocidal machine. It argues that the settlement it signed in 2014 would be breached by the renewal of the HEAR Act and expose it to more lawsuits in US courts. The argument is somewhat lame.
Let’s venture a thought or two here. The SNCF ferried not just Nazi victims to their deaths but also commodities requisitioned by the Germans or, worse, that they stole en masse from Jewish households. Trains conveyed these stolen goods for Vichy and the Nazis on a routine basis from fall of 1940 to summer of 1944. What if, what if those lobbying for the renewal of the HEAR Act are contemplating another round of class action suits aimed at France for all the wrongs that the Vichy government aided and abetted during its four years of collaboration with the Nazis? SNCF and other entities are perfect targets, much like the German Railroads and German companies for their complicity in the genocide machine. Joel Greenberg, founder of the Art Ashes foundation who is spearheading the lobbying campaign to renew the HEAR Act, warned that: “Institutions must stand clearly on the side of memory and restitution, not on the side of obstruction or indifference. France needs to face its treatment of the Jewish people honestly—not turn away from it.”
Jewish groups have largely spared France in their decades-long campaign for reparations stemming from the genocide of the Jews of Europe to which France’s Vichy regime participated with glee. Is France’s time up? And is Joel Greenberg the one holding the spear that will skewer its institutions for their past malevolence? As they say, be careful for what you wish for because it might all backfire. Meanwhile, the AAMD should not order champagne crates just yet. The battle over the HEAR Act has just begun. There's still one more year before a vote up or down will be held in an extremely polarized Congress.
Why on earth would SNCF support the AAMD in its fight against renewal of the HEAR Act which is exclusively about art restitution claims filed against American museums? The HEAR Act has nothing to do with the deportation of human beings. Hence, the two should not mix and even be in the same room. Odd to say the least.
Nicole Wizman, author of the Tablet article, suggests that SNCF fears that if the HEAR Act is renewed, its emphasis on the elimination of legal technical defenses (laches, statutes of limitations, etc.) might make it more vulnerable to lawsuits from the heirs of Holocaust victims that its trains had ferried to their death for the German genocidal machine. It argues that the settlement it signed in 2014 would be breached by the renewal of the HEAR Act and expose it to more lawsuits in US courts. The argument is somewhat lame.
Let’s venture a thought or two here. The SNCF ferried not just Nazi victims to their deaths but also commodities requisitioned by the Germans or, worse, that they stole en masse from Jewish households. Trains conveyed these stolen goods for Vichy and the Nazis on a routine basis from fall of 1940 to summer of 1944. What if, what if those lobbying for the renewal of the HEAR Act are contemplating another round of class action suits aimed at France for all the wrongs that the Vichy government aided and abetted during its four years of collaboration with the Nazis? SNCF and other entities are perfect targets, much like the German Railroads and German companies for their complicity in the genocide machine. Joel Greenberg, founder of the Art Ashes foundation who is spearheading the lobbying campaign to renew the HEAR Act, warned that: “Institutions must stand clearly on the side of memory and restitution, not on the side of obstruction or indifference. France needs to face its treatment of the Jewish people honestly—not turn away from it.”
Jewish groups have largely spared France in their decades-long campaign for reparations stemming from the genocide of the Jews of Europe to which France’s Vichy regime participated with glee. Is France’s time up? And is Joel Greenberg the one holding the spear that will skewer its institutions for their past malevolence? As they say, be careful for what you wish for because it might all backfire. Meanwhile, the AAMD should not order champagne crates just yet. The battle over the HEAR Act has just begun. There's still one more year before a vote up or down will be held in an extremely polarized Congress.
