MÁV Holocaust trial postponed to next March

A Chicago court has again postponed for months the first hearing in a Holocaust trial against Hungarian state railways MAV, Nepszabadsag daily said on Friday.

The court's judge ruled to put off the hearing's date from August 4 to March 2011, after attorneys on both sides agreed that given the case's complexity, collection of evidence would require more time, said the paper.

The lawsuit was filed against MAV at the Chicago court by 95 heirs of Hungarian Holocaust survivors in February this year, bringing claims worth 1.24 billion dollars. Based on nine years of research, they claim that MAV provided its carriages "fully aware" that these would be used to transport 437,000 Jews to the gas chambers in Auschwitz between March and October 1944.

The court in Chicago scheduled the first hearing for April 22 in March, which it then postponed until Wednesday next week.

MAV in its defence has, as court documents show, cited a US law of 1976 on foreign sovereign immunities, which establishes limitations as to whether a foreign sovereign state or their entities may be sued in courts in the United States.

One of the disputed issues between MAV and the plaintiffs is about the legislation's retroactive effect, said Nepszabadsag.

Under an agreement of attorneys representing both sides, the Holocaust survivors will submit to the court a modified lawsuit by next Monday at the latest, the paper said.

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