It ’s no enigma that the camera business organisation has been dependable to Jews , especially in New York City , where many religious Jews own and mesh some of the bighearted photograph stores in the world , like B&H. But did you fuck that in Europe , during the thirties , the Leitz family , couturier and manufacturer of one of the humanity ’s most famed cameras — the Leica — was creditworthy for serve thousands of Jews turn tail Nazi Germany ?
Sometimes touch to as " the photography industry ’s Schindler,“ Ernst Leitz II , a Protestant Christian , began a covert operation as Hitler lift to office whereby he assigned his Jewish employees to offices outside Germany . While most were relocated to New York City , others escaped to France , Britain and even Hong Kong .
At the operation ’s meridian between ' 38 and ' 39 , hundred of unexampled reaching found exemption in the United States where Leitz executives help the newcomers with job in the photograph industry . Meanwhile , back in Germany , the Leitz kinsperson paid the consequences for aiding Jews . Alfred Turk , a top executive , was jailed by the Gestapo . Even more notable : Leitz ’s own daughter , Elsie Kuhn - Leitz , was bemuse in jail after she was caught help Jewish charwoman foil into Switzerland .
The Leica Freedom Train account was kept quiet all these yr as the Leitz family wanted no publicity for its efforts . But now that the last surviving members of the menage have fade away , little by minuscule , the story of their valour is attracting care and has even been print in a ledger by a California - born rabbi identify Frank Dabba Smith .
While it ’s always hard to view images and photographs from the Holocaust , chronicle like the Leitz ’s prompt us that some did whatever they could to insure other pictures developed — single that enamour the practiced of world rather than the bad .
