In Touch - 1st Quarter 2022

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Memorial Stories The Leica and the Jews 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 acted with uncommon grace, generosity and modesty during the Nazi era. Ernst Leitz II (1871-1956) Ernst 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 Holocaust historians 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 in New York 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, marketeers, 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 1 st September 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 recognised brand that reflected credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced cameras, rangefinders and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government had a desperate need for 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 was eventually freed but endured rough treatment during questioning. She also fell under suspicion when she attempted to improve the living conditions of 700 to 800 Ukrainian slave labourers, all of them women, who had been assigned to work in the plant during the 1940s. After the war, Kuhn-Leitz received numerous honours 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 RECENTLY? 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. 6 IN TOUCH • 1 st Quarter 2022
The Fiddle A true story tracing a precious violin across landscapes devastated by war and terror, to safety and restoration in 21 st century Britain. PART ONE ABRAHAM’S STORY Abraham is Music Tutor to Tsar Nicholas II’s children when the Russian Revolution in 1917 causes him to flee St Petersburg with his family, his wife Anna, their 5 children, including Israel and Rosa, and Abraham’s brother with his family. He knows they are in great danger from the Bolsheviks, not only because he works for the Tsar, but because they are Jewish. Taking his precious violin with him, they leave St Petersburg with only the belongings they can carry and a small hand cart, which the men pull. A dangerous journey begins in which they endure many hardships, dangers and sickness. It takes them nearly a year to cross Russia on foot. They suffer the extremes of winter and summer weather and are grateful for the generosity of strangers and their hospitality, whom Abraham delights by playing beautiful music on his violin. Finally, on reaching Odessa, they manage to get places on a boat bound for England. The final destination for Abraham and his family is the City of Leeds in Yorkshire, where he believes they can begin a new life in safety. Book available from our shop. For more information please see Resources on back page. PART TWO ROSA’S STORY Rosa is a superb violinist. When her father Abraham dies she is given his violin, which he took on their long trek across Russia. Rosa is invited to join the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and, knowing what an honour this is to play with one of the best orchestras in the world, she travels eagerly to Berlin. It is 1936 and there are several other Jewish members in the Orchestra. When the persecution of the Jews begins under Hitler’s regime, they believe they are safe from internment under the protection of the Orchestra. However, Rosa is taken by the Nazis on 9 th November 1938 (Kristellnacht) and imprisoned in Mauthausen for one year. She is then moved to Auschwitz in 1939 and finally to Belsen Concentration camp in the spring of 1945, until the end of the war. She remains alive because of her music and her violin stays with her throughout. She survives only because she is a superb violinist and is forced to form one of the notorious women’s orchestras, whose task is to “welcome” arriving Jews and other prisoners to the camps. She suffers repeated rapes by the Commanding Officer. She is operated on as a guinea pig by the infamous Dr Mengele. Her will to live to tell the world what has been endured, by her and many thousands of others in the camps, keeps her alive until their liberation in 1945. She gives evidence at the Nuremburg War Trials, helping to convict some of the worst perpetrators of crimes against humanity that the world has ever seen. Once the effort of contributing her evidence is over, she dies in 1947 of the tuberculosis she contracted in the death camps. PART THREE ISRAEL’S STORY As a young man, Israel (Abraham’s son) is awarded a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He studies the violin until he is offered a position with the Halle Orchestra. When war is declared in 1939, he is deemed unfit for active service because of his flat and damaged feet. Instead of going to battle he joins ENSA and entertains the troops for the duration of the war. After 1945 he joins the Secret Service and interrogates German soldiers posing as Poles or Russians. He is fluent in both languages and therefore able to detect whether they are genuine Russians or Poles, or German officers, spies or deserters, trying to escape imprisonment. After returning to civilian life he forms his own orchestra, playing on the radio and appearing at top West End hotels and night clubs in London as well as Monte Carlo. When his sister Rosa dies of Tuberculosis, he is given the violin which has travelled with his family from St Petersburg, through Auschwitz and Belsen, and into his hands. It has since been dedicated to the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey and continues to be played. 1 st Quarter 2022 • IN TOUCH 7
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In Touch - 1st Quarter 2022

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