A humanist boss against "brown monkeys", told on Arte

The investigation begins with a memory. An American photographer is challenged by some amazing lines that pass before his eyes, randomly pages of a beautiful book flipped through in the shop, in the 1970s. The young man, Frank Dabba Smith, is stunned to learn that Ernst Leitz II, the boss of the optical company behind Leica compact cameras, would have participated in rescuing Jews from the clutches of the Nazi regime and settling them in the United States.

To discover

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We already knew the entrepreneur's disdain for the Third Reich and its minions, whom he nicknamed "the brown monkeys", as well as the actions of his daughter, Elsie, who had worked to improve the living conditions of forced laborers. But, on this story of survivors in America, no source. At least until the last twenty years.

Hidden history

The Nazis, the Rabbi and the Camera follows the rediscovery of Ernst Leitz's underground action, the result of work carried out since 1999 by Frank Dabba Smith, then newly ordained rabbi. A useful zoom on the reconstruction of this hidden history.

The film pays particular attention to the story of one of the surviving families. In the early 1930s, the Ehrenfelds owned a department store in the heart of Frankfurt called the Gift House. The wonderfully named address was renowned for its Leica radios, cameras and cameras, which flowed like hotcakes. In 1938, the shop did not survive the devastation of Kristallnacht; the property of the head of the family, Hans Heinrich Ehrenfeld, was confiscated, and he found himself rushed to Buchenwald. Ernst Leitz took him out on a visa to the United States and helped him rebuild his life there under the name Enfield. The German entrepreneur also ensured the success of his protégé's three children, by training them in his factory or by personally recommending them to studios in London and New York.

Affiliated with the Nazi Party

Due to family heritage, Jill Enfiled, granddaughter of Hans Heinrich Ehrenfeld, now pursues an activity as an art photographer in the United States. After cutting her teeth on Leica, she specialized in old-fashioned photography, on glass plate. She has taken a liking to old things. For the cameras of the German director Claus Bredenbrock, she brings out old albums and some family archives. Jill Enfiled tenderly handles her grandfather's last European passport. A letter J – for "Jew" – was stamped in red on the first page, amid the Nazi symbols; The mark is diaphanous, almost faded. Scars of a past life, of a world left on the other side of the Atlantic.

Later, the documentary looks at the risks faced by the Leitz family. The captain of industry did not compromise much, even if the Gestapo was wary of this boss too sensitive to the conditions of accommodation of his Ukrainian workforce. To take cover, Ernst Leitz joined the Nazi Party during the war. Elsie, his daughter, will nevertheless spend a few days in the jails of the political police of the Reich. For what assessment? Frank Dabba Smith counted more than 80 people rescued. Could the German king of photography have freed more people? Jill Enfield immediately defused: "It's already a lot, to save one person." If this forty-minute documentary is a little short, it puts a spotlight on a little-known hero, unlike Oskar Schindler, and that's the main thing.

Photographer Frank Dabba Smith is behind the rediscovery of the action of industrialist Ernst Leitz who saved at least 80 people from the clutches of the Nazi regime.