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 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. AsChristians, 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 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.

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 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 – a new Leica.

The refugees were paid a stipend until they could find work. Out of this 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 reflected credit on the newly resurgent Reich. The company produced range-finders and other optical systems for the German military. Also, the Nazi government desperately needed 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 eventually was freed but endured rough treatment in the course of questioning. She also fell under suspicion when 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 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 now? 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 .

Thank you for reading the above, and if you feel inclined as I did to pass it along to others, please do so. It only takes a few minutes.  Memories of the righteous should live on.

From the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:

The overnight police raids in Philadelphia and Los Angeles that dismantled two of the nation’s biggest Occupy Wall Street encampments leave just a few major “occupations” still going on around the U.S. But activists are already changing tactics and warning of a winter of discontent, with rallies and marches every week.

The camps may bloom again in the spring, organizers said, and next summer could bring huge demonstrations at the Republican and Democratic conventions, when the whole world is watching. But for now they are promoting dozens of smaller actions, such as picketing the president in New York and staging sit-ins at homes marked for foreclosure…

Demonstrators are still at it in places like Boston and Washington, which each had encampments of about 100 tents Wednesday. Dozens of protesters are fighting eviction from a community college campus in Seattle…

Click here to read the full article.

From the HUFF POST:

Almost three out of four people in the United States with HIV do not have their condition under control, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The news comes just days before World AIDS Day, which is on Dec. 1.

The high figures are likely a result of one in five people not realizing that they have the disease to begin with, the CDC said.

“While we have known that viral suppression can be achieved with proper HIV treatment and care, today’s new Vital Signs data highlight the challenges our country faces in keeping HIV-positive Americans in the care they need to control the virus,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H., the director of the CDC, said in a statement…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: Lancaster General Health has spurned an offer by the Urban League to operate a full scale syringe exchange here in Lancaster!  Syringe exchanges are gateways to identifying bearers of HIV / AIDS through testing, guiding them to treatment, and for protecting the health of the general population.

Governor Tom Corbett Explains Why Sandusky Arrest Took So Long

From the PHILADELPHIA CRIMINAL LAW NEWS:

For about three years, the State of Pennsylvania was building a case against Jerry Sandusky. From 2009 until just this month, many Pennsylvania officials including Governor Tom Corbett (the former Attorney General handling the case) were aware of the allegations against Sandusky, but yet still allowed the former Penn State coach unfettered access to school facilities where many of the alleged crimes occurred, reports The Times-Tribune.

Now, Governor Tom Corbett and Jerry Sandusky are mixed together in the scandal and the governor will have to explain why he risked endangering additional youths in the three-year period by not taking action sooner to remove or arrest Sandusky.

On Monday, Corbett offered some insight on why he waited.

Click here to read the full article.

Corbett explains his actions as AG on Sandusky case

From the TIMES-TRIBUNE:

Gov. Tom Corbett said Monday he would have risked revealing the path of a state grand jury investigation had he pressed officials to take away campus privileges extended to former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky before child sex-abuse charges against him were filed.

“It would reveal where we were going in the grand jury investigation,” Mr. Corbett added.

Speaking before the Pennsylvania Press Club, Mr. Corbett also said filing criminal sex-abuse charges against Mr. Sandusky based on just one incident before the grand jury report was ready could have backfired legally. He said investigators have found that in cases of alleged pedophilia, it’s important to establish a pattern of abuse because one is usually there…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: In other words it is okay to allow children to be molested and raped for three years  rather than lose an opportunity to get a conviction?   Sorry.  We find Corbett’s defense without credibility.

We further anticipate that facts will soon indicate that he was aware of far more than just one investigation.  Corbett is perched on a very slippery slope.  If he is lying, he may end up being indicted for obstruction of justice depending on whether is deplorable inaction was simply incompetence or he was willfully covering up for  croneys and to obtain political support and donations.

From the HUFF POST:

The Senate voted Tuesday to keep a controversial provision to let the military detain terrorism suspects on U.S. soil and hold them indefinitely without trial — prompting White House officials to reissue a veto threat.

The measure, part of the massive National Defense Authorization Act, was also opposed by civil libertarians on the left and right. But 16 Democrats and an independent joined with Republicans to defeat an amendment by Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) that would have killed the provision, voting it down with 61 against, and 37 for it.

“I’m very, very, concerned about having U.S. citizens sent to Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the Senate’s most conservative members…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: While driving, we listened to part of the Senate debate on this issue.  They would save a lot of time and hot air if senators would agree to debate back and forth on issues rather than each giving speeches filled with spin and questionable facts.

Very concerned with the 61-37 vote in the senate yesterday to allow domestic use of the military and very broad language that would allow indefinite military detention of Americans based on mere suspicion of terroism. Some of the young people in our camp are losing hope.  They see the Occupy Movement as their last hope and the passage of this law as a very serious attack on dissent.

Senate OKs Gov’t to Keep US Citizens in Military Custody, Indefinitely and Without Trial 30

Nov 2011 The Senate on Tuesday voted to increase the role of the military in imprisoning suspected members of ‘Al Qaeda’ and its allies — including people arrested inside the United States. By a vote of 61 to 37, the Senate turned back an effort to strip a major military bill of a set of disputed provisions affecting the handling of terrorism cases. The most disputed provision would require the government to place into military custody any suspected member of Al Qaeda or one of its allies connected to a plot against the United States or its allies. A related provision would create a federal statute saying the government has the legal authority to keep people suspected of terrorism in military custody, indefinitely and without trial. It contains no exception for American citizens.

KZ

From the WALL STREET JOURNAL:

An attorney representing a boy who accused former Pennsylvania State University football coach Jerry Sandusky of sexual abuse said his client and other alleged victims planned to testify at a hearing in two weeks, marking the first time they would publicly confront Mr. Sandusky.

Michael Boni, an attorney in Bala Cynwyd, Pa., said Tuesday his teenage client, who made his initial allegation to youth-services officials in 2008, planned to appear at a Dec. 13 preliminary hearing for Mr. Sandusky in Centre County Court. However, Mr. Sandusky could waive his right to the open hearing…

Mr. Boni said he and Philadelphia attorney Slade McLaughlin were hired last week to represent the boy and his mother. The lawyers plan to file civil litigation, Mr. McLaughlin said, but not until the criminal case is concluded. Mr. Boni named Mr. Sandusky, the Second Mile charity, Penn State and “a number of individuals” as potential defendants…

Click here to read the full article.

From NEWSMAX:

…As for the seven steps, Gingrich wants to see them executed in this order.

• Border fence. Gingrich wants a fence to be built along our entire border with Mexico by 2014. As president, he would suspend regulations, such as environmental impact studies, to get the fence erected on time.
• English first. Gingrich would make English the country’s official language.
• History lesson. Children seeking citizenship would have to learn our nation’s history.
• Visa reform. Gingrich would implement a new visa system. Now tourists and those seeking to do business in this country spend too much time and money on an overly complex process to garner a visa.
• Power of deportation. Gingrich said he would make it easier to deport criminals. For example, members of the El Salvadoran gang “MS-13” should be booted from the country immediately.
• Guest worker program. Gingrich would adjust this program, which allows foreigners to work temporarily in the United States. A private company, such as a credit card firm, should run the program rather than the federal government.
• Let them stay. Some illegal immigrants who have been here for decades would be allowed to remain in the United States. This would affect a “relatively small number” of people, Gingrich said. He blasted claims that his program constitutes amnesty. Those illegals allowed to stay here wouldn’t be offered citizenship.

Click here to read the full article.

From USA TODAY:

Some supporters of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution are turning to a method last used by the founding fathers: A constitutional convention.

And they’re already halfway to their goal. At least 17 of the 34 states necessary have petitioned Congress for a convention to propose a balanced budget amendment. States that have done it this year include Alabama, Louisiana, North Dakota, Texas and Utah.

One scholar, looking at resolutions dating back over two centuries, puts the number at 33 states — just one short…

Click here to read the full article.

EDITOR: Interesting.   At the same time liberals are beginning to push for a Constitutional Convention to rein in and control campaign financing.  Might the forces combine to call a Convention?    Some scholars maintain that once convoked, the Convention would be free to address any and all subjects.  Nevertheless, the recommendations must be ratified by three-quartes of the states.  The time may be near.

From the FINANCIAL TIMES:

International companies are preparing contingency plans for a possible break-up of the eurozone, according to interviews with dozens of multinational executives.

Concerned that Europe’s political leaders are failing to control the spreading sovereign debt crisis, business executives say they feel compelled to protect their companies against a crash that can no longer be wished away. When German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy raised the prospect of a Greek exit from the eurozone earlier this month, it marked the first time that senior European officials had dared to question the permanence of their 13-year-old experiment with monetary union.

“We’ve started thinking what [a break-up] might look like,” Andrew Morgan, president of Diageo Europe, said on Tuesday. “If you get some much bigger kind of … change around the euro, then we are into a different situation altogether. With countries coming out of the euro, you’ve got massive devaluation that makes imported brands very, very expensive.”

Click here to read the full article.