Leica’s SchindlerMaimon Schwarzschild

Extraordinary story about Ernst Leitz, the owner of the Leica camera firm in Wetzlar, Germany.  He seems to have been another Schindler.

Leitz’s humanitarian efforts on behalf of Wetzlar’s Jews began within days of Hitler’s rise to power in March 1933 and continued through Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when Jewish businesses and synagogues were systematically looted.   Leitz’s secret campaign only ended in 1939, when Hitler’s invasion of Poland resulted in the closure of Germany’s borders.

Actually, the quiet but very courageous decency of the Leitz family seems to have continued through the war.

There weren’t many such people in Nazi Germany.  But there were some.

Read the whole thing.