let shadows be

Jakob Wolfsheimer, an autistic young man, struggles with the world around him. Hardly surprising: he lives in the east German state of Saxony, it is 1934 and he has only recently come to terms with being half-Jewish. It never mattered before.

His solution to finding clarity and understanding was to dissipate an unexpected inheritance on a brand new Leica camera, serial number 128952. Four hundred Reichsmarks bought a black IIIF with its tiny Elmar lens.

But no further enlightenment came in its red cloth-bound box. Instead only different complications, especially after he emigrated to New York in 1937.

“Let Shadows Be”, a novel by John Heseltine