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Justophot light meter and suede pouch used by German Jewish US soldier

Object | Accession Number: 2003.149.50 a-b

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    Justophot light meter and suede pouch used by German Jewish US soldier

    Overview

    Brief Narrative
    Justophot light meter with suede pouch owned by Rudolph Sichel, a Jewish refugee from Frankfurt, Germany, who was a US Army officer in Europe from July 1944-June 1946. In May 1936, unable to return to Germany from England because of anti-Jewish regulations, Sichel went to the US. His parents Ernst and Frieda joined him in 1940. In April 1943, Sichel enlisted in the Army and was sent to Camp Ritchie for military intelligence training. In July 1944, Sichel, Chief Interrogator, Interrogation of Prisoners of War Team 13, landed on Utah Beach in France, attached to the 104th Infantry, the Timberwolf Division. As the unit advanced through France, Belgium, and Germany, Sichel interrogated those captured. On April 11, 1945, the unit liberated Dora-Mittelbau/Nordhausen concentration camp. Sichel took photographs of the camp and other wartime events, which are part of this collection, 2003.149.1. After the war ended in May, 2nd Lt. Sichel was attached to the 9th Army. He interrogated prisoners of war and civilian witnesses and did fact finding missions for war crimes trials. In June 1946, 1st Lt. Sichel returned to the US. He was awarded a Bronze Star for his service.
    Date
    manufacture:  approximately 1927
    Geography
    manufacture: Vienna (Austria)
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Howard S. Sichel and Linda Sichel Strohmenger
    Markings
    b. housing, circular end, bottom ring, engraved : JUSTOPHOT PATENT PAT. No. 13879 [?]
    b. housing, circular end, center ring, numbered scale, engraved : 2M 8 1/5 1/25
    b. housing, circular end, top ring, engraved : Plattengeschwindigkeit / Sensibilite des Plaques / Plate speed / AUTO CHROM / SCHEINER DREM [plates speed / plate sensitivity]
    b. outer silver cylinder, middle, numbered scale, engraved : 0 5 10 / OBEN
    b. inner silver cylinder, sliding ring, engraved : 8 SEC 2m 1/25 1/5
    b. interior, flat glass, brown paint, etched : 8 SEC 2m 1/25 1/5
    Contributor
    Subject: Rudolph D. Sichel
    Manufacturer: DREM
    Designer: Emil Mayer
    Biography
    Rudolf (Rudolph) Daniel Sichel was born on January 2, 1915, in the Hesse district of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to Ernst and Frieda Oppenheimer Sichel. Ernst was born on July 20, 1874, in Frankfurt am Main, to Seligmann and Sophia Seligmann Sichel. Frieda was born on April 24, 1876, in Rimbach, Germany, to a Jewish couple. Rudolf’s mother had one older sister, Georgine, and two younger ones, Ida and Cecelia, all of whom had immigrated to the United States by 1908. Rudolf’s father managed the family business, a haberdashery shop, S. Sichel, which had been established in 1874. Rudolf had an older brother, Walter (1905-1955.) In the early 1930’s, Rudolf worked as a sales clerk in his family’s store. Following his graduation from school, he began a course of study at the University of Frankfurt.

    Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. Anti-Jewish decrees were enacted to severely restrict Jewish participation in German society. In 1933, Frankfurt had a Jewish community of about 26,000, the second largest in Germany. In 1934, 19 year old Rudolf went to London, England, to study business. In 1936, Rudolf, unable to return to Germany because of the restrictions on Jews, left for the United States aboard the SS Berengaria. He arrived In New York City on May 26, and moved in with his aunt and uncle, Ida and Moe Blum. Later that year, Rudolph found work as a sales clerk at R.H. Macy & Co. He often went by Rudy, and, unofficially, seems to have changed the spelling of his name to Rudolph. In October 1937, Rudolph’s brother Walter and his wife, Elizabeth, arrived in New York City. On November 9 or 10, 1938, during the Kristallnacht pogrom, Rudolph’s father, Ernst, was arrested, marched down the street with his hands up in the air, and taken to Buchenwald concentration camp. He was assigned prisoner number 4173. On November 27, Ernst was released and returned home. Soon after his return, Ernst was forced to sell the family store to a non-Jew for less than it was worth. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began. In early 1940, Rudolph moved out of his aunt and uncle’s apartment and found his own apartment. In March, Rudolph’s brother, Walter, helped sponsor their parents’ emigration, and Ernst and Frieda left Germany, and sailed from Liverpool, England, on the SS Britannic. When they arrived in April, Rudolph’s parents moved in with him. By 1941, Rudolph, had been promoted to an assistant buyer at R.H. Macy & Co.

    Soon after the December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered World War II. On April 29, 1943, Rudolph enlisted in the US Army and was selected for the Military Intelligence Training Center at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, to learn interrogation techniques. On October 23, he graduated from Camp Ritchie. On June 24, 1944, the Military Intelligence Service designated Rudolph as Chief Interrogator and second in command of Interrogation of Prisoners of War Team 13. In July 1944, Rudolph landed on Utah Beach in France. In October, his team was attached to the 104th Infantry Division, nicknamed the Timberwolf Division, as they advanced into Belgium. By November, the Division was approaching Aachen, Germany, as part of the 12th Army Group. From December 1944 to February 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge, the 104th defended territory near Duren, Germany. In March, the Division captured Cologne, crossed the Rhine River, and continued eastward. Rudolph interrogated prisoners in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Rudolph, an avid photographer who owned several cameras and accessories, photographed many wartime events, landscapes, and his fellow soldiers. On April 11, soldiers from the 104th Division liberated Dora-Mittelbau/Nordhausen concentration camps and Rudolph photographed the horrific conditions. The Division continued to advance until April 26, when they met allied Soviet forces near Pretzsch, Germany. On May 7, Germany surrendered.

    On May 9, Rudolph, now a Master Sergeant, was discharged from the Army. He received a field commission and was immediately reenlisted as a Second Lieutenant. On May 29, Rudolph was attached to the 9th Army as an interrogator. He was responsible for interrogating prisoners of war and war criminals in order to discover and document wartime activities and events for use as evidence for the war crimes trials scheduled for Nuremberg. He also served as an interpreter and made fact finding visits to former concentration camps to gather additional information. In mid-June 1946, Rudolph returned to the US and was honorably discharged as a First Lieutenant. Rudolph received many medals for his service, including a Bronze Star, and a US Army Commendation. He returned to New York City and his former position at R. H. Macy & Co. On January 18, 1948, Rudolph married Sylvia Ruth Eisenkraft (1916-2007) and the couple had 2 children. Rudolph’s father Ernst, age 88, died in 1962, in New York. Rudolph’s mother, Frieda, age 87, died in 1963, in New York. Rudolph, age 63, died in April 27, 1978, at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York.
    Emil Mayer was born on October 5, 1871, in Nový Bydžov, Czechoslovakia (Nový Bydžov, Czech Republic), to a Jewish couple. Emil was still a child when his family moved to Vienna, Austria. In 1891, Emil began studying law at the University of Vienna. In 1894, he converted to Catholicism. In 1896, Emil graduated and began practicing law in Vienna. Emil married and continued to work as a lawyer while pursuing a strong interest in artistic photography. Emil developed most of his photographs of daily life in the streets and parks of Vienna using the bromoil process, which was popular at the beginning of the 1900s. In 1907, he became the president of a large and prominent amateur photography club in Vienna. Emil was a well-known bromoil expert, wrote a textbook about the process, and applied for several related patents.

    In the early 1920s, Emil left his law firm and began working as a professional photographer. In 1924, he established a photography company, Drem Office, in Vienna. The company was named after him, and specialized in photographic equipment, particularly the Justophot light meter, which he designed. In 1927, he left his position as head of the photography club. In 1928, Emil and a partner opened Drem Products Ltd. in London, England. Emil continued designing new photographic equipment and soon established the Drem Products Corporation in New York. In the late 1920s and the early 1930s, Emil made many contributions to the photographic community in Austria, England, and the United States, and held positions of honor in several photographic associations.

    Nazi Germany annexed Austria on March 13, 1938. Anti-Jewish policies were enacted that stripped Austrian Jews of their rights and prohibited their participation in certain professions and activities. Though Emil no longer practiced Judaism, he was still considered Jewish by the German authorities. Emil and his wife both suffered under the anti-Semitic policies. Emil, age 66, and his wife, committed suicide on June 8, 1938, in Vienna. Not long after their death, the Gestapo entered the Mayer home and destroyed or confiscated much of the couple’s property, including most of Emil’s original photographic prints. Two copies of a collection of Emil’s photographs did survive and are currently held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York and the Lee Gallery in Winchester, Massachusetts

    Physical Details

    Language
    English French German
    Category
    Cameras
    Object Type
    Light meters (lcsh)
    Physical Description
    a. Conical, light brown, soft suede drawstring pouch for a light meter (b). The top is folded over and has 12 punched holes threaded with a brown drawstring.
    b. Cylindrical light meter within a sliding, black-painted metal cover that has a flared, oval metal eyecup, a small knob, and a cut out end bracket. The housing slides open along the bracket slots to expose an inch high section of a silver-colored metal cylinder with numbers, notches, and directional arrows. At the end of the cylinder is a small window to view a flat, sliding, silver metal ring with numbers. Around the end is a movable ridged band attached to another section of housing with a stack of 3 flat, black metal rings with side tabs. The top 2 rings slide; the bottom one is screwed in place. The rings have text and numbers to correlate light levels with film sensitivity. A flat, circular piece of translucent glass is set inside the section and has numbers indicating light sensitivity. At the other end of the housing is the eyecup with a convex, clear glass lens to view the translucent glass and numbers, which change as the ridged band is moved to adjust settings. To focus the numbers, the cover slides up or down the length of the silver cylinder.
    Dimensions
    a: Height: 4.750 inches (12.065 cm) | Width: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm) | Depth: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm)
    b: Height: 4.500 inches (11.43 cm) | Width: 5.625 inches (14.288 cm) | Depth: 1.250 inches (3.175 cm)
    Materials
    a : leather, string
    b : metal, paint, glass

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    No restrictions on access
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The light meter and pouch were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003 by Howard Sichel and Linda Sichel Strohmenger, the children of Rudolph Daniel Sichel.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-08-28 07:51:55
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn46793

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