THE LEICA FREEDOM TRAIN

A REMARKABLE STORY ABOUT HEROISM IN THE FACE OF DARKNESS:

THE LEICA FREEDOM TRAIN

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 theclosely held firm as the Holocaust loomed across Europe, acted in such a way as to earn the title, "the photography industry's Schindler.

"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, askingfor 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 theirprofessional activities.

To help his Jewish workers and colleagues, Leitz quietly establishedwhat has become known among historians of the Holocaust as "the Leica F reedom Train," a covert means of allowing Jews to leave Germany in t heguise 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 Kongand the United States . Leitz's a ctivities intensified after the Kristallnacht of November 1938, during which synagogues and Jewish shops were burned acrossGermany.

Before long, German "employees" were disembarking from the ocean linerBremen 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 - anew Leica.

The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out ofthis 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 reflectedcredit on the newly resurgent Reich.

The company produced range-findersand other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed hard currency from abroad, and Leitz'ssingle 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 helpJews 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 intoSwitzerland. She eventually was freed but endured rough treatment inthe course of questioning.

She also fell under suspicion wh en 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 PalmsAcademic from France in 1965 and the Aristide Briand Medal from theEuropean Academy in the 1970s.)

Why has no one told this story until now?According to the late Norman Lipton, a freelance writer and editor, theLeitz family wanted no publicity for its heroic efforts.

Only after thelast 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.