FRANCE’S ROLE IN HOLOCAUST OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED
PanARMENIAN.Net
17.02.2009 14:31 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ France’s top judicial body on Monday formally
recognized the nation’s role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps
during the Holocaust – but effectively ruled out any more reparations
for the deportees or their families.
Jewish groups welcomed the ruling by the Council of State, the clearest
legal acknowledgment to date of France’s role in the Holocaust.
Nearly 70 years ago, the Vichy government helped deport some 76,000
people – including 11,000 children – from Nazi-occupied France to
concentration camps during the war. Fewer than 3,000 returned alive.
The council said that the French government of the time "allowed or
facilitated the deportation from France of victims of anti-Semitic
persecution."
"In an absolute rupture with the values and principles notably of
the dignity of the human person … these anti-Semitic persecutions
provoked exceptional damage of extreme gravity," it said, the AP
reports.