Re: [Leica] Value Added and Nazi Cameras

["Dan Post" <dwpost@email.msn.com>]

My recollection is that the Leitz family did everything possible to make the
plight of their workers better- they gave many of their Jewish workers, if
not all, a IIIb to be used if necessary as a bartering tool to aid in
getting out of the country- they were called +ACI-Freedom Cameras+ACI-. Many of
these industrialists, not just Otto Schindler, believed that the greatest
contribution to humanity was to keep as many people alive as possible under
the conditions- slave labor notwithstanding. In reading the accounts of many
of the survivors, and I recall one from a survivor who worked in an ersatz
honey factory that produced a vitamin enriched syrup for expectant mothers.
His feeling was that he and those around him survived because they were kept
alive as long as they worked and that they were helped and fed by the
management so as not to be sent back to the camps.
Out and out resistance was pretty much out of the question, the only open
resistance I call find is a case where students at the University in Munich,
many in uniform, were summoned to a mass meeting by Gauleiter Paul Giesler
because of anti-Nazi leaflets coming from the University. The meeting ended
in open protest with the students hitting the streets despite attendance by
SS guards. This was in January 1943- a month later Himmler had three of the
student leaders beheaded.
Most anti-Nazi activity was like that of the Leitz and other families who
had to do business with the Reich+ADs- quiet and unobtrusive, since any open
opposition was considered treason, and the penalty was death.
I think that the efforts of many Germans saved many, many lives that would
otherwise have been lost had not they quietly endeavored to work the system.
Sorry for the fairly off topic post...I agree with Walts Jewish friend...
Indeed, WHO has the shit now?+ACE- They say that living well is the best
revenge+ADs- it might be said that living-period- and being able to see the end
of the horror and its perpetrators is the best revenge.
Dan
dwpost+AEA-msn.com