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 earn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler."

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 camera.

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 cameras,
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.

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.

Memories of the righteous should live on.

The original book by Frank Dabba Smith was written in 2002 and is showing as "unavailable" on amazon.

The article you've posted (without attribution) was written in 2006. See it here. Two links on the page don't connect to anything. If this subject is of enough interest to you to want to share on UHH, perhaps research for more recent information and publications?

There is much online, such as this from 2014.

.

Last night we had guests. And my cousins husband critized me for reading the NYTimes. He said
that during the war they knew but did not critize the camps and murder of jews. I don't know if
this was true.
I do know that the Pope was during the war did nothing to ask the Christian germans
to not hurt civilians and Jewish people. Even our government would not let Jewish children
on a ship sail to a safe port.
Many German and Japanese companies were involved in making the war machine
for Hitler and the planes and technology that killed many of our and allied troops.
Great to here that Leica was the Schindler of camera companies.