High Speed Rail Holocaust Controversy

ORLANDO, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) - A High Speed Rail meeting was held in Orlando Thursday , and there were big concerns about one company bidding on it.. French Railway Company, also called SNCF., is under fire because during World War II the company transported Jews to concentration camps.

The Florida High Speed Rail will go from Orland to Tampa. Passenger stations will also be in Lakeland, Walt Disney World, International Drive and Orlando International Airport.

The train will then eventually extend its service to Miami. So, could it be built by a company with ties to the Holocaust? One woman thinks so. She drove all the way from Boca Raton to be at the Florida Department of Transportations public meeting in Orlando.

Her message was to raise awareness about one of the companies interested in building Central Florida’s proposed high speed rail project. It turns out they worked hand in hand with the Nazis.

SNCF operates the world’s fastest passenger trains. Rosette Goldstein says her father, a French Jew, was transported by one of the company’s trains to a concentration camp during World War II.

They were paid per head and per kilometer for every prisoner that they took to the camps.

’We appreciate Mrs. Goldstein came up from Boca Raton to share her story with us. She told me she’s here to speak on be half of all the millions of people that died between World War II.’ said Dick Kane, FDOT, Director of Communications.

SNCF is among nearly 40 companies that are interested in building Orlando’s high speed rail system. FDOT hasn’t yet begun the bidding process, but will the company’s history discourage the state from accepting any bids?

FDOT won’t say. ’We don’t want to stop them from building or doing business in Florida. We want them to apologize which they have never done and pay restitution,’ said Goldstein.

A woman representing SNCF tells said the railway is owned by France. As far as reparation is concerned, she says since the mid 40s the French government and the railway have been assisting victims of the Holocaust and their surviving families and that they continue to do so today.