[Leica] Nazi Leicas

["Emanuel Lowi" <mano@proxyma.net>]

As a sometime collector and long-time Leica user, I have often pondered Leitz's Third
Reich connections. My father is a Holocaust survivor (and a Schindler Jew) and  I am
named after my own first cousin who was murdered by the Nazis. My dad brought a
wartime Leica with him to America when he immigrated after the war. That IIIC was my
first camera. So my interest is not idle curiosity.

I encounter WWII-era Leicas marked by genuine Nazi insignia with some regularity, but
have always chosen not to buy them for my collection. I guess I don't even want the
sweat of a previous user inside my family's home. 

On one occasion, I simply obtained photos of such a camera and its lens etc. and
supplied them to James Lager who published some of them in his book, "An Illustrated
History - Vol. 1" on page 89. These were photos of equipment used by Nazi
photojournalists who, notoriously, documented the genocide of European Jewry. I felt
that these objects were small pieces of the evidence of one of history's greatest
crimes and, given the proliferation of Holocaust denying scum today, worth preserving
publicly.

I have often found that people who make a specialty of collecting Nazi-era Leicas
have a kind of morbid fascination with the equipment, as if they were cultic objects.
However, one never really knows what another person thinks or feels,  so I cannot
judge such individuals. The great number of fake "Leicas" with Nazi insignia
currently flooding the market  indicates that there is some kind of demand for this
crap. I cannot fathom such interest.

I have known an orthodox Jew who collected WWII era Leicas. He said he delighted in
gathering up the jetsam of the failed Hitlerian  fantasy. His point was (and this is
arguable) that the Nazis are gone, while we Jews remain.

In delving deeper into the history of Ernst Leitz Wetzlar during the war, I've
learned that the company was certainly better than most German firms in its treatment
of Jews and other targets of the Nazis. It is both gratifying and appropriate to note
that the makers of the world's greatest cameras and lenses were also fine human
beings in many other ways. 

Emanuel (no scientifically tested horizontal underwear portraits for sale until
Friday!) Lowi
Montreal