Holocaust Survivor in Pikesville Speaks Out Against Rail Company

Leo Bretholz of Pikesville is a Holocaust survivor who has spoken to state and federal lawmakers about abuses that occurred during the Holocaust.

He's 90 years old and is among the survivors, families of survivors, and others who have been fighting the French national railroad, Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, SNCF, a rail company they believe should be held liable for transporting some 76,000 Jews and others to Nazi death camps, according to an article in The Baltimore Sun.

Ellen Lightman, a Baltimore County resident, and other survivors or families of survivors "are now hopeful they can leverage a legislative victory in the Maryland General Assembly this year into momentum for a stalled bill in Congress that would open the company to reparation lawsuits," the article states.

"They never would have gotten there [gas chambers] had they not been transported by the railroad," Lightman told The Sun. Lightman's grandparents, great-grandparents and aunt were killed in the , the article states.

Bretholz, 90, said he is wary of the exposure that speaking out has brought him. He gets "threats and angry letters from people who say he is fighting the company for the money," the article states.

"It is not important to me, frankly," he told The Sun. "It is important for justice."