[Leica] Leica Freedom Train

[krieger at usc.edu (Martin Krieger)]

A story I had never heard before - a tale of courage, integrity and 
humility that is only now coming to light, some 70 years after the 
fact.

The Leica is the pioneer 35mm camera. From a nitpicking point of view, it
wasn't the very first still camera to use 35mm movie film, but it was the
first to be widely publicized and successfully marketed.

It created the "candid camera" boom of the 1930s.
It is a German product - precise, minimalist, 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 George Gilbert, a veteran writer on topics photographic, told the 
story at last week's convention of the Leica Historical Society of 
America in
Portland, Ore., Leitz Inc., founded in Wetzlar in 1869, had a tradition of
enlightened behavior toward its workers. Pensions, sick leave, health
insurance - all were instituted early on at Leitz, which depended for 
its work force upon generations of skilled employees - many of whom 
were Jewish.

The 'Leica Freedom Train'

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.