Holocaust Survivor Leo Bretholz Gets 60K Signatures Against French Railroad Company

Image by change.org
As a French rail company plans to lay down projects in several cities across the country, a 92-year-old Holocaust survivor is speaking out, demanding that the company first make amends for its role in transporting tens of thousands of people to their deaths in the Holocaust.
Leo Bretholz, a Maryland Holocaust survivor, launched a change.org petition with the hopes of pressuring French railway company SNCF into paying reparations to Shoah victims before its U.S.-based affiliate Keolis begins its major American projects.
“It is time for SNCF to be held accountable for its active role in the Holocaust,” he wrote.
The petition has reached nearly 60,000 signatures in just a few days.
“In 1942, after years of hiding from the Nazis because I am a Jew, I was put on a train bound for Auschwitz,” change.org quoted Bretholz saying in a press release. “That train was part of SNCF, the French railway company that transported 76,000 people – including 11,000 children and many American pilots shot down in France – toward Nazi death camps.”
Though Bretholz escaped the train before it reached Auschwitz, all but five of the 1,000 people on board reportedly died in the death camp.
Over the past few years, SNCF has sought to expand its market with a number of high-speed rail projects in cities across the country.
“My life has been forever changed by the actions of SNCF,” Bretholtz said in the change.org release. “It is simply unconscionable that SNCF’s American subsidiary is now competing to build and operate the Purple Line in my home state of Maryland — one of the single biggest contracts in state history — while refusing to be held accountable.”
Maryland Senator Joan Carter Conway and House Delegate Kirill Reznik recently announced legislation that would require any company to disclose involvement it or its affiliated companies had in the deportation of individuals during the Holocaust. The legislation further requires that the company must disclose whether it has paid reparations to its victims.
“SNCF’s actions during the Holocaust were a failure of humanity,” change.org quoted Reznik as saying. “It would be a further tragedy for the company or its affiliates to thrive in the very communities many Holocaust survivors call home without first owning up to its past and making things right.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
- 3
Opinion Yes, the attack on Gov. Shapiro was antisemitic. Here’s what the left should learn from it
- 4
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward 72% of American Jews disapprove of Donald Trump’s performance so far, poll finds
-
Culture Einstein or Edison? Jordan or LeBron? A rabbi explains why Jews debate who is greatest
-
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on U.S. soil. I think I know why no one objected
-
Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.