Gypsies to sue IBM over Nazi ‘links’

Big Blue faces more Holocaust claims

By Linda Harrison • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 6th June 2001 17:02 GMT

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Romany gypsies are threatening to sue IBM over its alleged involvement in the Holocaust.

In a case similar to that brought and then dropped by Washington DC law firm Cohen, Milfield, Hausfeld and Toll earlier this year, the action revolves around IBM's Hollerith tabulating machinery.

This is believed to have been used by the Nazis to track and identify their victims.

"The spontaneous, unceasing, self-willed delivery to IBM Germany of IBM machines....is a conscious and deliberate act of participation in an administrative organisation dedicated to...racial destruction," said groups' lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc, Reuters reports.

The suit will demand around $10,000 for each of the 1.2 million people believed to have been orphaned after their parents were killed by the Nazis.

Sambuc admitted that tracking the victims down would be difficult, especially due to the high illiteracy rate among gypsies. The legal action will start as soon as 1,000 victims are found - it is hoped this will happen by September.

The suit will be filed in Switzerland, the former HQ of IBM's German and Swiss subsidiaries.

Around 600,000 gypsies are believed to have died at the hands of the Nazis. ®