MIAMI • A congresswoman from Florida is pressuring National Public Radio stations, the cable television network CNBC and others to stop airing sponsorships and advertising by a giant German insurer that collaborated with the Nazis.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is pushing legislation that would allow Holocaust survivors to sue Allianz AG, has launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at blocking the insurer from advertising with any U.S. media until it pays off all Holocaust survivors' life insurance claims. During World War II, Allianz insured concentration camp facilities and sent money to the Nazis instead of to rightful Jewish beneficiaries.

"Allianz is no ordinary insurance conglomerate," Ros-Lehtinen recently wrote to the media companies. "This company was involved in one of the greatest atrocities in recent history and has gone to great lengths to dodge acceptance of responsibility for its actions.

"It is far past time for Allianz to repay its debt to the survivors and families that suffered as a result of the Holocaust," wrote Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican lawmaker who heads the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Her letter campaign has caught the attention of CNBC and American Public Media Group, the Minnesota-based company that distributes Garrison Keillor's popular radio program, "A Prairie Home Companion," and the business program Marketplace. CNBC and American Public Media officials told The Miami Herald that they were reviewing her request but had not made a decision.

An NPR spokeswoman declined to comment, saying all stations are independent and make their own programming and underwriting decisions.

The congresswoman's media campaign is yet another sign of the simmering controversy over reparations to Holocaust victims, after her committee hearing this month on legislation that would allow potentially thousands of survivors with life insurance claims to sue Allianz and other European insurers for damages in U.S. courts.

Her political move reflects the moral stamina of a Miami-based survivors group that has not only sought the right to sue, but also put pressure on the same TV and radio stations to stop accepting Allianz's advertising and money.

Ros-Lehtinen, whose survivors legislation has more than 50 House sponsors, said her media campaign was not a "personal vendetta" against Allianz.

"If they can spend money on advertising, surely they can repay insurance policies to Holocaust survivors," she said.