LEICA AND THE JEWS
The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. It is a German product - precise, minimalist, and utterly efficient.
Behind its worldwide
acceptance as a creative tool was a family-owned, socially oriented firm that,
during the Nazi era, acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty. E.
Leitz Inc., designer and manufacturer of Germany's most famous photographic
product, saved its Jews.
And Ernst Leitz II,
the steely-eyed Protestant patriarch who headed the closely held firm as the
Holocaust loomed across Europe , acted in such a way as to earn the title,
"the photography industry's Schindler."
As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor
of Germany in 1933, Ernst Leitz II began receiving frantic calls from Jewish associates, asking for his help in getting them
and their families out of the country. As Christians, Leitz and his family were
immune to Nazi Germany's Nuremberg laws, which restricted the movement of Jews
and limited their professional activities.
To help his Jewish
workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly established what has become known among
historians of the Holocaust as "the Leica Freedom Train," a covert
means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in the guise of Leitz employees being
assigned overseas.
Employees, retailers,
family members, even friends of family members were "assigned" to
Leitz sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong and the United States,
Leitz's activities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during
which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned across Germany.
Before long, German
"employees" were disembarking from the ocean liner Bremen at a New
York pier and making their way to the Manhattan office of Leitz Inc., where
executives quickly found them jobs in the photographic industry.
Each new arrival had
around his or her neck the symbol of freedom - a new Leica camera.
The refugees were paid
a stipend until they could find work. Out of this migration came designers,
repair technicians, salespeople, marketers and writers for the photographic
press.
Keeping the story
quiet The "Leica Freedom Train" was at its height in 1938 and early
1939, delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks. Then, with the
invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, Germany closed its borders.
By that time, hundreds
of endangered Jews had escaped to America, thanks to the Leitzes' efforts. How
did Ernst Leitz II and his staff get away with it?
Leitz, Inc. was an
internationally recognized brand that reflected
credit on the newly
resurgent Reich. The company produced cameras, range-finders and other optical
systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed
hard currency from abroad, and Leitz's single biggest market for optical goods
was the United States.
Even so, members of
the Leitz family and firm suffered for their good works. A top executive,
Alfred Turk, was jailed for working to help Jews and freed only after the
payment of a large bribe.
Leitz's daughter,
Elsie Kuhn-Leitz, was imprisoned by the Gestapo after she was caught at the
border, helping Jewish women cross into Switzerland . She eventually was freed
but endured rough treatment in the course of questioning. She also fell under
suspicion when she attempted to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800
Ukrainian slave laborers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in
the plant during the 1940s.
(After the war,
Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honors for her humanitarian efforts, among them
the Officier d'honneur des Palms Academic from France in 1965 and the Aristide
Briand Medal from the European Academy in the 1970s.)
Why has no one told
this story until now? According to the late Norman Lipton, a freelance writer
and editor, the Leitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts. Only
after the last member of the Leitz family was dead did the "Leica Freedom
Train" finally come to light.
It is now the subject
of a book, "The Greatest Invention of the Leitz
Family: The Leica
Freedom Train," by Frank Dabba Smith, a California-born Rabbi currently
living in England.
Thank you for reading
the above, and if you feel inclined as I did to pass it along to others, please
do so. It only takes a few minutes.
Memories of the
righteous should live on.
CLICK HERE for story on Wikipedia.
