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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.
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 ea rn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler."

The 'Leica Freedom Train'

As soon as Adolf Hitler was named chancellor of Germany in
1933,=2 0Ernst 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=2 0among 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 a ctivities 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 wo
rking 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 wh en 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 Frank20Dabba
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.

Who knew??

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