QUOTE(pim @ Feb 3 2007, 01:39 AM)
That Leica lens rocks, no?
Pim, speaking of Leica...
QUOTE
Subject: An Amazing Story out of Nazi Germany
>
>
> The Leica Freedom Train
>
>
> 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. 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. 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 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.
