Leica and the Jews in WWII

CatLABS · Apr 22, 2014

ntenny said:
If only we had records of the events of the past in a good documentary medium: something difficult to falsify, preferably visual, and something that would outlast the human lifetime and serve as a kind of ongoing witness. It would even be OK if it were only in black and white, I think.

Wouldn't that be useful?

-NT

There is no such thing, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) as something that "cannot be falsified", and recent news in the US should be enough evidence of this.

CatLABS · Apr 22, 2014

jnanian said:
i hope it won't all be forgotten, cause we're pretty much doomed if it is ...

Way, way to late for that.

bdial · Apr 22, 2014

Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it...

bdial · Apr 22, 2014

I had an opportunity a couple of weeks ago to see and hold a Leica III who's original owner was the Luftwaffe. It was made circa 1943.
It is for sale, and for that particular fact of it's history, it is quite the collectable item, so I understand. It most likely came to this country as war bounty. The gentleman that owned it is now deceased, so the story of its journey is mostly speculation.
I don't find any fault with Leica over building and selling that camera to the government of the time. But on reflection I decided that it's something I would not want to own, even briefly.

On the other hand,
I'd love to hear the story told by one of those employee's arriving in their new assignment with their new Leica, and see the pictures they may have made.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 22, 2014

ntenny said:
If only we had records of the events of the past in a good documentary medium: something difficult to falsify, preferably visual, and something that would outlast the human lifetime and serve as a kind of ongoing witness. It would even be OK if it were only in black and white, I think.

Wouldn't that be useful?

-NT

All the records in the world cannot avail against willful ignorance.
Dachau still exists, (in part) by the way.

AgX · Apr 22, 2014

bdial said:
I had an opportunity a couple of weeks ago to see and hold a Leica III who's original owner was the Luftwaffe. It was made circa 1943.
It is for sale, and for that particular fact of it's history, it is quite the collectable item, so I understand. It most likely came to this country as war bounty. The gentleman that owned it is now deceased, so the story its journey is mostly speculation.
I don't find any fault with Leica over building and selling that camera to the government of the time. But on reflection I decided that it's something I would not want to own, even briefly.

As this has brought us back to Leitz:

The question is whether one can see the aid to people evading, fleeing the regime apart from Leitz getting involved in the war by its production, by using forced labour.
In a dictatorschip no-one can really retract, some try to evade certain situations, some have and take the chance to leave. Ernst Leitz decided to stay, to keep his plant running, to join the party. For his benefit, for the benefit of his own workers.
As I indicated above evaluating things in hindsight is difficult. But I take the view that other aspect of his life has to be seen too.

E. von Hoegh · Apr 22, 2014

" People know @#!*% -all squared about history"

Well said. Thank the educational system, but blame those who do not value history. History is very inconvenient for many... shall we say 'elected officials'.

Pioneer · Apr 22, 2014

bdial said:
Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it...

I am afraid we have been repeating it continuously...I doubt it has ever really stopped. What happened to the Jews, though particularly massive and egregious, is far from the only example of genocide, even in much more recent history than World War II. The planned, systematic, violent destruction of other cultures and peoples is sadly very common. And not only do we not remember, we try to forget as quickly as we can and tend to turn our backs whenever it occurs.

I would prefer that we never,ever forget what happened to the Jews; but why stop there? Why not remember what has happened in Bosnia, Serbia, Rwanda, etc, etc, etc?

To actually learn from history you have to actually make monuments to these acts of destruction, not to the leaders who were the architects of this destruction. But I am afraid that is too hard for us. We don't like to look back at our collective failures.

ntenny · Apr 22, 2014

Fortunately it doesn't rest with us to make any final judgement on Leitz's human merits and fallibilities; and it's really an individual call what artifacts each of us would and wouldn't want to be associated with, for whatever reason. That all sounds very postmodern and relativist, but I don't really think there's much of an alternative.

I've got a wartime Nettar; there's a fair chance it was made at least in part by Fremdarbeiter, I suppose, and certainly the same resources that produced it were supporting the German war effort. Every so often I ponder whether that should bother me or not.

-NT

E. von Hoegh · Apr 22, 2014

ntenny said:
Fortunately it doesn't rest with us to make any final judgement on Leitz's human merits and fallibilities; and it's really an individual call what artifacts each of us would and wouldn't want to be associated with, for whatever reason. That all sounds very postmodern and relativist, but I don't really think there's much of an alternative.

I've got a wartime Nettar; there's a fair chance it was made at least in part by Fremdarbeiter, I suppose, and certainly the same resources that produced it were supporting the German war effort. Every so often I ponder whether that should bother me or not.

-NT

IIRC Zeiss-Ikon was camera maker to der Dritte Reich.
The camera exists; use it, take care of it, and pass it on to someone who will do likewise - that's how to honor the Fremdarbeiter if you wish to do so.

AgX · Apr 22, 2014

To put the Leitz aid into perspective:

Evidence for the existance of such aid is very scarce and thus there are doubts in Germany.
But even a small scale aid to a few persons but on regular basis would be singular in the whole photo industry in Germany.

As far as truth has come to light so far...

ntenny · Apr 22, 2014

From the perspective of a parent, I think real progress on deep-seated human issues like racism is more generational than individual.

I've got a six-year-old son; that's the "good guys and bad guys" developmental stage, so he's very interested in what happens to Bad Guys who get in trouble, and we got talking last night about the (US) legal system and jury trials. The point came up that of course juries aren't always right, and sometimes they make decisions based on unrelated things like skin color.

I don't know if I've ever seen anyone so surprised in my life; he truly thought it was THE WEIRDEST THING EVER that people would view race as a determinant of guilt or worth. If he knew the phrase "are you f*cking with me?" he would have said it. Well, he's only one kid, but by school age a generation ago, we sure knew viscerally that social lines were drawn on racial ones. His total surprise at that concept is (metonymically) my best hope for the future of People Gettin' Along With Each Other.

-NT

John Koehrer · Apr 22, 2014

ntenny said:
If only we had records of the events of the past in a good documentary medium: something difficult to falsify, preferably visual, and something that would outlast the human lifetime and serve as a kind of ongoing witness. It would even be OK if it were only in black and white, I think.

Wouldn't that be useful?

-NT

Maybe, or not.
Presented with photographic or physical evidence, there are quite a few world over that deny the holocaust.

SchwinnParamount · Apr 22, 2014

Don't the recorded eye-witness accounts count for anything? How about the physical evidence that is quite abundant. And then there are all of the SS documents that describe the implementation of the "final solution". How about the evidence presented at the Nuremburg (sp?) war trials. The evidence of the holocaust is abundant, more abundant than evidence of things like the battle of Waterloo... and yet there don't seem to be any Waterloo deniers.
The idiots who deny the holocaust are all political agenda and no brains. Holocaust evidence is not going away despite the wishes of a few.

removed account4 · Apr 22, 2014

AgX said:
To put the Leitz aid into perspective:

Evidence for the existance of such aid is very scarce and thus there are doubts in Germany.
But even a small scale aid to a few persons but on regular basis would be singular in the whole photo industry in Germany.

As far as truth has come to light so far...

hi agx

even though the evidence is scarce there are ALWAYS heros who put other peoples' lives before their own.

i am alive today because of the courage of the neighbor of my great grand parents ... and i think of this often.
when there are governments that just take-over and threaten everyone to do what they say, it is a huge thing to realize
that maybe the people in charge aren't right and then harbor people who would be gunned down, raped, tortured, murdered
dig their own graves(and then shot), sent to march around the desert until they died ... or just be hanged in the town square,
because if caught you would be killed on-the-spot right next to the people you tried to help.

often times these people are just regular people who act self-less-ly ... and often times they are anonymous, and fear for their lives ( even afterwards )
so it makes sense that they are not well documented ...

CatLABS · Apr 22, 2014

SchwinnParamount said:
Don't the recorded eye-witness accounts count for anything? How about the physical evidence that is quite abundant. And then there are all of the SS documents that describe the implementation of the "final solution". How about the evidence presented at the Nuremburg (sp?) war trials. The evidence of the holocaust is abundant, more abundant than evidence of things like the battle of Waterloo... and yet there don't seem to be any Waterloo deniers.
The idiots who deny the holocaust are all political agenda and no brains. Holocaust evidence is not going away despite the wishes of a few.

Those are all easily refuted with some silly backward logic arguments. Watch "wag the dog" and you see that our construct of reality is often based on manufactured "evidence" of an absolute truth. So who is to say that all those things were not manufactured for an opposite political gain? There is no real way to explain the "Banality of Evil", just because it is such. Try explaining something like the Rowanda genocide to someone who things south africa is the southern portion of some far away continent, and you will see how hard it is to explain the concept the millions were murdered for no reason while the entire world stood by, especially after the same world vowed to "never again" this and that, and see how far you get. Same is the case with the holocaust.

Leica and the Jews in WWII

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