NEW YORK (AP) -- A lawsuit filed Thursday seeks damages from the French government for property lost by 75,000 Jews and others who were sent to Nazi death camps during World War II. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court by Holocaust victims and their heirs. It said France established and ran holding camps where Jews and others were forced to turn over their property - from bank accounts and insurance policies to artworks and other valuables.
The plaintiffs are seeking an accounting of the property and disgorgement - repayment of money allegedly earned through fraudulent means. They are also seeking restitution and compensatory and punitive damages.
The lawsuit names as defendants the Republic of France and its national railroad, the Societe Nationale des Chemins de Fer Francais, which it said ran the trains that transported the victims.
A third defendant, Caisse des Depots et Consignations, the national public depository of France, accepted and held the plaintiffs' property, the lawsuit said.
Agnes Vondermuhll, a spokeswoman at the French Embassy in Washington, said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.
U.S. subsidiaries of both companies did not immediately return telephone messages.
Lucille A. Roussin, a professor at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law who worked on the lawsuit, said the victims were spread around the world, including in France, Canada, Great Britain and Australia.
She said about 300 victims or family members, many of them in the United States, had contacted lawyers working on the lawsuit and others were expected to.
"Everything they had was taken from them," Roussin said. "This isn't about money. It's about memory, and it's about justice. These people deserve recognition of what they went through or what their parents went through."
The lawsuit alleges the defendants "committed, conspired to commit and aided and abetted others who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity."
It cites facts from the Matteoli commission, which was established by the French government and outlined the collaborationist Vichy regime's systematic looting of Jewish property during World War II. The commission was France's answer to charges that the nation had been unwilling to face its own role in the Holocaust.
In 2001, France agreed to pay a minimum of $72 million to families whose bank assets were confiscated during the war. The French government announced earlier this year the fund had benefited nearly 11,000 people.
