comapedrosa Posted February 4, 2007 Share #1 Posted February 4, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) There's an interesting article in this weekend's Finanical Times about Leitz's deeds during WWII. FT.com / Home UK / UK - New life through a lens Best Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
graeme_clarke Posted February 4, 2007 Share #2 Posted February 4, 2007 What a fascinating insight into the social history of the time, made so much more interesting because of our affinities with Leitz equipment. Thanks for sharing, Graeme Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
abrewer Posted February 5, 2007 Share #3 Posted February 5, 2007 What a fascinating insight into the social history of the time, made so much more interesting because of our affinities with Leitz equipment. Thanks for sharing, Graeme Yes, and this is a story that I never tire of hearing of Leitz and his clever resistance of evil. Rabbi Smith is a member of the Forum and has posted here in the past his full manuscript of his record of the events and times of Ernest Leitz. As is Mark de Paolo who is producing a movie about Leitz's efforts. God bless the Rabbi, and Mark, for their work in bringing this story to light. Thanks. Allan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
k_g_wolf ✝ Posted February 5, 2007 Share #4 Posted February 5, 2007 Thx a lot for this link. Didn´ t know how complex this whole story was. Wonderful article. A big credit to people like Frank Dabba Smith !! Best Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhsimmonds Posted February 5, 2007 Share #5 Posted February 5, 2007 Thank you for providing us with the F.T. link. It is a fascinating read and one of probably very many such stories of bravery and altruism of German nationals in Nazi Germany, some of which may never unfortunately ever be heard. Many German business people risked so much to blunt the worst excesses of the nazis. I guess it was a matter of knowing just how far one could push the boundaries before using up your available "credit". In Ernst Leitz II case, he must have known that as a specialist manufacturer of optical products of value to the nazi war machine, his boundaries could go a fair way. But he must have also been aware of the un-predictability of the regime and yet he still took the risks. Successful businessmen are usually gifted with good judgement. In this and in other ways, he was a very special man to which we probably owe the fact that we are able to use this particular Forum today. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertknappmd Posted February 5, 2007 Share #6 Posted February 5, 2007 I fervently second Allan Brewer's comments... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcbjr Posted February 5, 2007 Share #7 Posted February 5, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) FT.com / Home UK / UK - New life through a lens above link is to a very interesting article in this weekend's financial times about leitz's efforts to help jews flee nazi persecution in the 1930's by offering them apprenticeships at the leica factory. john Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry Posted February 5, 2007 Share #8 Posted February 5, 2007 John, Thanks very much for posting the link to this article. A few years back there was an extensive discussion of this topic in the forum. I have a deep personal interest the wartime humanitarian efforts of the Leitz family because I'm reasonably sure that my mother and her family, who fled the Frankfurt area in 1938, were able to leave Germany with their help. For me, supporting Leica not only fuels my passion for photography, but also helps pay back a life-giving debt. Larry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_reid Posted February 5, 2007 Share #9 Posted February 5, 2007 John, Thanks very much for posting the link to this article. A few years back there was an extensive discussion of this topic in the forum. I have a deep personal interest the wartime humanitarian efforts of the Leitz family because I'm reasonably sure that my mother and her family, who fled the Frankfurt area in 1938, were able to leave Germany with their help. For me, supporting Leica not only fuels my passion for photography, but also helps pay back a life-giving debt. Larry That's really interesting. Cheers, Sean Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcbjr Posted February 5, 2007 Share #10 Posted February 5, 2007 John, Thanks very much for posting the link to this article. A few years back there was an extensive discussion of this topic in the forum. I have a deep personal interest the wartime humanitarian efforts of the Leitz family because I'm reasonably sure that my mother and her family, who fled the Frankfurt area in 1938, were able to leave Germany with their help. For me, supporting Leica not only fuels my passion for photography, but also helps pay back a life-giving debt. Larry glad you saw it, larry, and interested to learn of the connection to your family. john Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
scanner Posted February 5, 2007 Share #11 Posted February 5, 2007 FT.com / Home UK / UK - New life through a lens above link is to a very interesting article in this weekend's financial times about leitz's efforts to help jews flee nazi persecution in the 1930's by offering them apprenticeships at the leica factory. john as a former history teacher I find this article of extremely great interest. I will copy it. many thanks for sharing this with us !! Rob. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
larry Posted February 5, 2007 Share #12 Posted February 5, 2007 John, Sean; Without going into protracted detail, this is what was told to me by my mother, grandmother and aunt (all now deceased): My grandfather was a grain dealer in Budingen (northeast of Frankfurt), which was a small farming community at the time. Being a good German and WW I vet, he was very reluctant to leave. However, after my mother and aunt were repeatedly brutalized in school and he was himself threatened, he realized there was no choice. Apparently he knew someone at Leitz and was made an "official" dealer, sales rep or something of the sort. Leitz sold him six cameras (not sure which model) at cost - a considerable sum of money at the time. This allowed him to essentially take cash out of the country in the form of cameras. When the family arrived in New York, he resold the cameras at a designated location. His association with Leitz and the help he received from his brother, who was already living in the U.S., allowed the family to survive. Unfortunately, there's no written documentation of any of this. I'm depending entirely on oral history, but I have no reason to doubt that it happened. Larry Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
carstenw Posted February 5, 2007 Share #13 Posted February 5, 2007 That's really incredible. My regard for the Leitz family and Leica camera in general has gone up inestimably since I started finding out about this. It makes me proud to invest money in this equipment, and help such a company survive. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigrmurray Posted February 5, 2007 Share #14 Posted February 5, 2007 This is a thread and a link from the Customer Forum that I think many will find fascinating. Thanks to Comapedrosa for posting it. The link is to an article in the Financial Times on Feb. 3rd. Some of you may know about Leitz's special humanity to Jews before World War II, but this was all new to me, and I've had Leicas thirty years now. Stories like this really make one happy to own a Leica. FT.com / Arts & weekend / Magazine - New life through a lens Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitchell Posted February 5, 2007 Share #15 Posted February 5, 2007 Larry, Thanks for telling this story! Good for Leica! Good for your family! Best, Mitchell Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigrmurray Posted February 5, 2007 Share #16 Posted February 5, 2007 The link above is working now -- I just edited it. Craig Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcbjr Posted February 5, 2007 Share #17 Posted February 5, 2007 larry- that's a fantastic story, and very much like the anecdotes described in the article. thanks for sharing it with us. john Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevez4 Posted February 6, 2007 Share #18 Posted February 6, 2007 Thank you Larry. Wonderful info. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gduveen Posted February 6, 2007 Share #19 Posted February 6, 2007 Larry, that is an extraordinary story, but it fits with what else we know about Leitz under the Nazis. I recently bought a book by Frank Dabba Snith called "Elsie's War", which is a kind of photo-history book for schools telling the story of Enst Leitz's daughter Elsie, arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo for trying to help a Jewish woman escape from Germany in 1943. She was only released by the fmaily paying a large ransom. The book also recounts that wiht most of the Leica workers conscripted into the army, the factory relied on the forced labout of 7-800 Ukranian women to produce cameras and binoculars for the military. Elsie also risked herself by giving these women extra food and blankets. Reading it made me think how complex the realities of life under the Nazis could be. The book also has a brief foreword by Henri Cartier-Bresson, whose anti-fascism would not have allowed him to celebrate this woman in the warm terms he uses unless he also knew of many aspects of that awartime experience. (HCB also signs himself as "Leicaiste amateur" in a beautiful understatment!). Gerard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
abrewer Posted February 6, 2007 Share #20 Posted February 6, 2007 Craig, I moved and merged your thread into this one. Thanks. Allan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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