'If only there had been more Oskar Schindlers, more Ernst Leitzs, then less Jews would have perished.' 'Under considerable risk and in defiance of Nazi policy, Ernst Leitz took valiant steps to transport his Jewish employees and others out of harm's way,' said Abraham Foxman, director of ADL. The ADF credits Leitz with saving hundreds of lives - counting both the workers and their families - and has compared him to Schindler, believed to have saved more than 1,200 Polish Jews from death by employing them in his enamel factory in Cracow. The Anti-Defamation League presented Leitz's granddaughter, Cornelia Kuhn-Leitz, with its Courage to Care award in Palm Springs, Florida. Yesterday his painstaking work culminated in a posthumous award for Leitz, who died in 1956, in recognition of the efforts that risked his life and those of his family. Only now have details of the Leica refugees come to light, thanks to the detective work of a London-based rabbi.įrank Dabba Smith, 51, rabbi of the Harrow and Wembley Progressive Synagogue in northwest London and a Leica enthusiast, has reconstructed their stories through photographs, documents and letters of thanks from survivors and their families.

But the risks he took were arguably just as high. The numbers he saved, about 50 sent to the US plus 23 others, are much smaller than those rescued by Sudeten German industrialist Oskar Schindler, to whom he is being compared. Others were able to escape punishment for being related to Jews by marriage, thanks to Leitz's intervention.

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