PARIS — About 1,200 families and groups have asked the French state rail network for compensation for its role in transporting people to Nazi death camps during World War II, the railway said Friday. The rail network, SNCF, contests the claims, saying it was under orders of French authorities at the time and exercised no autonomy under the occupation government. The families were basing their demands on a successful court challenge by European Parliament member Alain Lipietz and his family. A court in Toulouse ordered the government and the SNCF in June to pay $77,600 damages for their roles in transporting four Lipietz relatives to a Nazi transit camp.
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