Some FASCINATING facts about Leica (like the role they played in the Holocaust!)

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So I was at the Agenda Tradeshow in New York City the other day and I met with Leica's Director of Global Innovation and we had a pretty cool chat about Leica and it's history, etc. Some stuff I learned:

• Founded 39 years before Kodak, 68 years before Nikon, 88 years before Canon or Polaroid
• Responsible for taking the 35mm camera mainstream
• The classic Che Guevara portrait & VJ Day in Times Square image were shot on Leica cameras
• Was John Glenn’s camera of choice when he took the first photograph of earth from space
• Most shocking of all though is the role Leica played in the Holocaust! Here's a mind blowing bit taken straight from Wikipedia about it:

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.Each new arrival was given a Leica camera. 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. The “Leica Freedom Train” was at its height in 1938 and early 1939, delivering groups of refugees to New York every few weeks until the invasion of Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, when Germany closed its borders.
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Click here to watch the interview I did with him and see some other cool stuff

 

[pixmedic]

Didn't make it Into space though....so...

Go hassleblad!