Nazi Victims' Greek Descendants Sue for Compensation in Italy

One of the most controversial Nazi war crime cases, arising from a massacre in a Greek village, has been reopened - not in Greece or Germany, but in Italy.

The move also means a historic villa may have to be sold to pay reparations to the descendants of the victims.

It is the latest example of so-called "judicial tourism", in which litigants explore other countries' legal systems in search of a favorable ruling.

Within the next few days, according to a report in the newspaper Corriere della Sera, Italy's highest appeal court, the court of cassation, will hear a plea from the German government against a judgment by a lower tribunal in favor of the Greek plaintiffs.

A court in Florence ruled that an Italian mansion belonging to the German state should be set aside as a guarantee against the authorities in Berlin refusing to pay.

Villa Vigoni, on the shores of Lake Como, was left to Germany by its owner in the 1980s. It now serves as an Italo-German cultural center and once hosted a meeting between the countries' presidents.

The plaintiffs' German lawyer, who practises in Florence, is claiming €40m damages from Berlin for a massacre in the village of Distomo on June 10, 1944, which left 218 people dead. It was not the bloodiest Nazi reprisal in Greece, but it was among the most savage: the victims included a two-month-old child and an 80-year-old woman.

In 1997, following years of legal wrangling, the supreme court in Athens ruled that the German state should pay the villagers the equivalent of €23m. When the money was not forthcoming, the court gave the plaintiffs a claim on the premises in Athens of the Goethe-Institut, the German equivalent of the British Council.

The Greek authorities blocked the implementation of the court order, but the children of one of the victims took the case to the Florence court after it ruled that the decision could be executed in Italy.

A ruling by Italy's top appeal court would have implications for descendants of the victims of other massacres, particularly in the Balkans.