The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently upheld a trial court's dismissal of a suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA, 28 U.S.C. §1602 et seq.) asserting defendant's collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Holocaust. The court's opinion, together with the background out of which this proceeding emerged, raises questions transcending the particular circumstances of this case. Scalin v. Société Nationale SNCF SA, 2021 WL 3464359 (7th Cir. 2021).

The complaint alleges plaintiffs' ancestors, Jews rounded up in France after its 1940 capitulation to Nazi Germany, had their property stolen by workers of the French national railroad, who then handed it over to the Nazis; the Jews were forced onto trains operated by the railroad and deported to Nazi extermination camps. Approximately 76,000 Jews were deported from France, with over 69,000 sent to Auschwitz; very few survived. Plaintiffs seek compensation for the property stolen. Franciszek Piper, "Estimating the Number of Deportees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp," 21 Yad Vashem Studies 49, 76-77 (1991).