[IP] Gypsies win right to sue IBM over role in Holocaust
Begin forwarded message:
From: Brian Randell <Brian.Randell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 23, 2004 3:38:37 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
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@xxxxxxxxx PHONE = +44 191 222 7923
FAX = +44 191 222 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/~brian.randell/
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