Gypsies win right to sue IBM over role in Holocaust

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell () newcastle ac uk>
Date: June 23, 2004 3:38:37 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Gypsies win right to sue IBM over role in Holocaust

Hi Dave:

I don't know whether this has yet been carried in the US media, but if 
not thought you might want it for IP.

Cheers

Brian

From today's (UK) Guardian:

> Gypsies win right to sue IBM over role in Holocaust
>
> Ian Traynor
> Wednesday June 23, 2004
> The Guardian
>
> A Swiss appeals court yesterday ruled that the US computer giant IBM 
> may have helped Adolf Hitler pursue mass murder more quickly and more 
> efficiently than would otherwise have been possible, opening up the 
> prospect of a $12bn lawsuit against the company by Gypsy 
> organisations.
>
> In the first case of its kind, the Geneva-based Girca organisation - 
> Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action, representing 
> around 600 Roma associations - won an appeal and the right to sue IBM 
> after a lower court last year dismissed the case on the grounds that 
> Switzerland did not have jurisdiction on the matter.
>
> IBM's pioneering punch cards and prototype computer systems were used 
> by the Nazis to systematise and collate information on the Jewish 
> population and others under the Third Reich from the 1930s, an 
> operation that oiled the wheels of the Holocaust.
>
> At least 600,000 Gypsies as well as six million Jews were ultimately 
> murdered.
>
> A book published three years ago documented how the model capitalist 
> firm was implicated in mass murder.
>
> The book, by Edwin Black, the son of Polish Holocaust survivors who 
> has also written that Hitler's extermination policy was partly 
> inspired by American eugenicists of the early 20th century, was the 
> trigger for the initial lawsuit in Switzerland, launched in January 
> 2002 and dismissed last year.
>
> News of the appeal court ruling came yesterday from the Gypsies' 
> lawyer, Henri-Philippe Sambuc, who argues that Geneva was the nerve 
> centre of IBM's European operations in the 1930s. He told the 
> Associated Press news agency that IBM's Geneva office organised 
> business between the Nazis and IBM operations across Europe.
>
> The litigation is being pursued on behalf of five European Gypsies who 
> were orphaned in the Holocaust. Each is claiming $20,000 (£11,000) in 
> "moral" compensation from IBM.
. . .

Full story at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1245090,00.html
--
School of Computing Science, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon 
Tyne,
NE1 7RU, UK
EMAIL = Brian.Randell () ncl ac uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/

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