France's wartime treatment of Jews has been thrown into renewed focus by the suicide of a woman of 96 who was left in despair by a protracted compensation battle for property seized under anti-Semitic French law.
In September, Charlotte Delahaye, described as mentally alert and in excellent physical condition for her age, dictated one last, anguished letter to the French body handling her claim. Three weeks later, she travelled to Switzerland to end her days in a voluntary euthanasia clinic.
According to the distant cousin and close friend acting as her agent, she urged him to use her case to fight for a better deal for those still waiting for justice.
France's Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation (Civs) was created in 1999. By December 2004, it had processed almost 21,000 cases, paying out £140 million, £12.5 million of it from banks that had failed to return assets to Jewish account holders.
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