The Leica Freedom Train

November 10, 2006 2:11 AM

Everyone by now has heard the story of Oscar Schindler, but he wasn't the only one saving Jews in the dark era of WW II. This story was kept secret for many years, until the last member of the Leitz family died.
posted by pjern (21 comments total)

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.

Was that to get them out of Germany or to get them into, for example, the United States? I imagine that getting an entry visa was at least as hard as getting an exit visa.
There were (shamefully) very few countries were handing out visas to Jews in the 1930s.
posted by three blind mice at 2:50 AM on November 10, 2006

As I read it, he assigned them an employee status, and were sent to 'work' in the United States, where they were paid a stipend while they got on their feet. Many of them found emplyment in the photographic industry.
posted by pjern at 3:11 AM on November 10, 2006

As I read it, he assigned them an employee status, and were sent to 'work' in the United States, where they were paid a stipend while they got on their feet.

Yeah, but in the 1930s, and especially in the 1930s if you were a Jew, the problem was the visa.

As refugees (asylum seekers) Jews were being turned away from lots of countries in the 1930's. Boatloads of Jews fleeing Nazi death camps were infamously turned away from more than one country. Why would these countries be any more generous to Jewish employees of foreign firms?

I'm just wondering how he pulled this off.
posted by three blind mice at 3:36 AM on November 10, 2006

Maj. Karl Plagge worked "within the system."

Not as sexy a story, perhaps, but he undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives.
posted by a_day_late at 4:22 AM on November 10, 2006

Amazing and remarkable. I hadn't heard of this before, and once again, I am impressed by the courage of some people.
posted by PreacherTom at 5:22 AM on November 10, 2006

Great story -- thanks for the post.
posted by languagehat at 5:56 AM on November 10, 2006

Snap! I didn't know that.

Look at the ads that Google connect this topic to...
posted by Bravocharlie at 6:07 AM on November 10, 2006

Every time I ride an escalator I'm looking to see if it's a Schindler.

My dad was something of a Jew-hater and Hitler-apologist...until I asked him about Mauthausen. He was pretty quiet about that sort of stuff for a long time afterward.
posted by pax digita at 7:12 AM on November 10, 2006

There's a big difference between seeking asylum as a refugee and coming in on a work visa, even in the 1930s.
posted by etaoin at 7:20 AM on November 10, 2006

Hmmm, presented at the 'Leica Historical Society". Sounds like a skeptical audience.

This FAQ seems useful - lots of links. Interesting topic: while doing something is better than doing nothing, what is a reasonable expectation of "doing enough" to feel good about it afterwards?
posted by Rumple at 9:14 AM on November 10, 2006

Three Blind Mice - here's my understanding arising out of my grandparent's own story (please pardon the unofficial language). The U.S. in particular was turning down Jewish refugees not out of anti-Semitism but out of a policy that disallowed refugees who would then become a financial drain on the U.S. (apply for welfare, etc.). It was necessary to prove to the U.S. government that you would be able to support yourself once you arrived - so having a "job" was key. The only other method was having a sufficiently rich U.S. citizen "sponsor" you (guarantee your financial support) - and the government tracked this to make sure that no sponsor was bringing over more people than they could support.

So part of the challenge for refugees was that they couldn't leave Germany without a visa, and couldn't get a visa without a sponsor or a job. My grandmothers parents were sponsored by a friend of a friend, and my grandfather finally eventually emigrated on a fiancee visa, but was unable to bring over his own mother or brother.

The Leitz family's actions stand out for their courage and generosity.
posted by AuntLisa at 10:12 AM on November 10, 2006

This is great. Just the other day I was making fun of my friend and his "Nazi camera." The boy loves his Leica. Looks like I'll have to take back what I said. Maybe I'll even get my own Leica in honor of the Leitz family's legacy. They are fantastic cameras.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 10:37 AM on November 10, 2006

AuntLisa--we condemned many to their deaths by not allowing them in, and FDR and his administration knew it. This lays it out: FDR and the Jews: The Vision and the Reality (all the things listed that he didn't do but easily could have are verifiably true). FDR is still a hero of mine, but in this he failed on a massive scale.
posted by amberglow at 3:18 PM on November 10, 2006

Amberglow - I was trying to avoid the politics behind the policies here, and focus more on the question posed by Three Blind Mice. I certainly don't mean to make excuses for the U.S.' actions...I was simply trying to explain one way the system could be managed at the time.
posted by AuntLisa at 3:36 PM on November 10, 2006

Can they be separated tho? It was very very very few people that we let in, and the Leica folks should have just been among a mass of people we let in--that's vital to the story, and it's why stories like this are still remarkable--and very rare--and people like the Leitzs and Schindler are still venerated.
posted by amberglow at 3:45 PM on November 10, 2006

Aunt L.,

I think it's a bit more complex than that. Before and during the war, the US government purposely downplayed the Holocaust as antisemitism was so widespread in the US itself, people wouldn't support the war if they knew saving Jews were a part of the bigger picture. Of course, after the war, the story of the liberation was the one to tell, now being the entrance point of the museum in Washington.

Ring a bell?
posted by Bravocharlie at 3:59 PM on November 10, 2006

Every time I ride an escalator I'm looking to see if it's a Schindler.

Not the same family, just so you know. Schindler Group is Swiss; Oscar Schindler was Sudeten German, from Czechoslovakia.

Before and during the war, the US government purposely downplayed the Holocaust

Before the war, technically, there was no Holocaust. There was persecution, yes, but there are many places which persecute(d) minorities.

people wouldn't support the war if they knew saving Jews were a part of the bigger picture

It wasn't. The big picture was saving the world from Hitler and Tojo.

After the discovery and confirmation of the Holocaust, of course, the same not having done enough problem that someone like Leitz faced fell on the entirety of the US and Allies. I believe that what they didn't do was reasonable at the time, and wouldn't cause a fraction of the debate even in this thread if it weren't for the Final Solution making not having done enough in essence a war crime by proxy.

FDR, for his part, was simply enforcing American immigration law -- and so were all the other countries who did the same. To some extent this was turning a blind eye, but to a large extent it was ignorance. The threat posed by the Nazis to Jews was a small fraction of the threat posed by Nazi Germany to Europe and the United States.
posted by dhartung at 4:22 PM on November 10, 2006

How about I just withdraw the part of the comment that stated "not out of anti-semitism" ? I didn't mean that to be a substantive part of the answer, and don't want to encourage this (extremely polite) derail into U.S. politics during the Hitler era.

I thought the interesting part of this story was that the Leitz family found a way to manipulate the system and save lives. I respect and admire that, even though simultaneously some of my own relatives' lives were lost.
posted by AuntLisa at 4:26 PM on November 10, 2006

dhartung, He had visas to give and didn't give them. He had refugee slots he never filled. It's not true he was "simply enforcing American immigration law".
posted by amberglow at 8:56 PM on November 10, 2006

Dhartung, true that. Change "knew" to "thought", and you have my point.

Before the war, technically, there was no Holocaust. There was persecution, yes, but there are many places which persecute(d) minorities.

Virtually, however, there was. And even before the war, holocaust was a term for persecution, it just wasn't capitalized (on) as it was from around the 80'ies.
posted by Bravocharlie at 12:23 AM on November 11, 2006

dhartung, thanx for the clue on some Schindlers vs. other Schindlers. I'll remember that too when escalator-spotting -- hard habit to break, this long after the movie.

(Not that die schweizerische Leute do not have sins of their own for which to answer. I don't think anybody totally made the cut ethics-wise; world wars can bring out the worst in people as well as the best.)
posted by pax digita at 6:26 AM on November 11, 2006