Re: A Room for Everybody

[sphillips@umbsky.cc.umb.edu]

A recent message to this group commented on relations between Leitz (the
compny, owners and management) and the Nazis.  I must say that this subject has
always bothered me.  A recent book examines the conduct of members of a police unit and
describes the enthusiasm with which they taunted, tortured and murdered Jews.
One common act was to take photographs of wives/girlfriends with the bodies of
Jews killed moments earlier. Wives and girlfriends were often present at the
killings and the whole experience had for the perpetrators, all the atmosphere
of a jaunt in the country.  Denazification and the distance that fifty years
have brought have led some to treat the crimes of Shoah as, in the words of the
author, "some kind of middle-age shoplifting". The personal actions, as much or
more so than the total roll of the dead or the destruction of one of the
world's great civilizations, Yiddish language, literature and culture, leave me
totally reeling.  How could someone look into the eyes of a Jewish man,
woman or child, even as they begged for their life and kill them?  The fact
that they then pulled out their trusty Model III. The glass case brigade
especially, should consider their fetish for these tools, some of which had
such monstrous uses. Are we also to collect bloodied daggers?

From the poster of information about Leitz and the Nazis, I would truly welcome
the additional information he made mention of.From the rest of us, perhaps some
recollection and discussion.