Jewish-Australians could be among thousands of Holocaust victims and their families who are eligible for a share in $US60 million compensation from the French government.
Under a deal struck between France and the US, survivors can apply for compensation for Jews deported to Nazi death camps on French trains during the Second World War. 
The US will distribute the money to non-French citizens who settled in countries that do not have a reparations agreement with France. The fund is expected to be accessed by thousands of Holocaust survivors, their spouses and family members.
Professor Konrad Kwiet, resident historian at the Sydney Jewish Museum and former chief historian of the Australian War Crimes Commission, said hundreds of non-French citizens who were captured in France migrated to Australia after the war.
"Some returned from those camps and stayed in France, but some also migrated further to Israel, Palestine, America," he said. "Definitely there's some who came to Australia, there might be a few hundred. But there's not many left who are alive."
State-owned French train company SNCF transported 76,000 Jews and other prisoners across France to the death camps between 1942 and 1944, about 3000 of whom survived.
About 30,000 Jews migrated to Australia from Europe between 1945 and 1954, mostly from Poland, Hungary and Germany.   
Reuben Zylberszpic, from the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne, said it was likely that a comparatively small number of Holocaust victims in Australia would be affected by the announcement.
"It's really up to them and any of the Jewish organisations here to assist them to determine whether they fit the criteria the French government has laid down with the Americans," Mr Zylberszpic said.
"But there are definitely survivors of the Holocaust who were in France, who were either themselves deported or who had family deported, and who settled in Australia."
It has been reported that the settlement fund could see survivors receive up to $US100,000 each and their heirs may be entitled to tens of thousands of dollars.
In return, the US will "ensure an enduring legal peace" for France in relation to American lawsuits filed against it over the government-owned railroad used to transport Jews to death camps.
Lawsuits brought in US courts nearly cost SNCF its commercial contracts in the United States. There have been calls for SNCF itself to compensate US victims.
In the joint statement, the two governments said the fund would deliver "another measure of justice to those who suffered the harms of one of history's darkest eras."
"This fund will supplement the programs established by France for reparation and compensation of the victims of anti-Semitic persecutions during the Holocaust," it said.
France set up a compensation fund for French victims in 1948 and later struck bilateral agreements to pay reparations to survivors in Belgium, Poland, the UK and the former Czechoslovakia. 
French citizens and those covered by bilateral agreements must apply under the existing French settlement program.
With AFP