Maryland bill targets Purple Line bidder’s ties to Holocaust

A bill introduced in the Maryland General Assembly would prohibit one of the firms bidding on the light-rail Purple Line project from winning the contract unless its parent company pays reparations to Holocaust victims transported on its trains.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore), would affect Keolis, a rail company whose majority owner is SNCF, the government-owned French railway. Historians say SNCF trains carried nearly 76,000 Jews and other Nazi prisoners to the French-German border on their way to extermination camps during World War II.

Keolis is a member of one of four consortiums recently chosen by the Maryland Department of Transportation to bid on a public-private partnership to design, build, operate, maintain and help finance a 16-mile Purple Line between Montgomery and Prince George’s counties. The 35-year contract is valued at more than $6 billion, one of the largest ever in the state....