Washington Post Editorial: Maryland's Bizarre Holocaust Law

GOV. MARTIN O’MALLEY (D) signed a bill the other day whose effect may be to exclude a company from competing to operate commuter trains in Maryland because it is partly owned by SNCF, the French government-owned railroad. The bill is bizarre, illogical and possibly self-defeating; it is testament to the absence of rational discourse in public disputes related to the Holocaust.

The legislation is the first such measure to become law in the country. Its impetus is SNCF’s unquestioned wartime role in transporting more than 75,000 Jews from France to Germany, where most of them were murdered in Nazi death camps. The bill’s advocates included Leo Bretholz, a 90-year-old Holocaust survivor who escaped from a French train bound for Germany. He argued that SNCF has not fully disclosed its historical records or made adequate reparations to those deported....

Maryland has bitten off more than it can chew. The new law, a blunt instrument, expropriates the role of the federal government in making foreign policy. It invites retribution against Maryland firms or other American companies seeking to bid on contracts in France. And if it excludes SNCF, which already runs commuter lines in Virginia, Maryland may be hurting only itself. After all, the state had to cancel the bidding once already last year, citing a lack of competition. It seems SNCF was the only game in town.