He was sent to Italy, where he met his Weltini, the name a play on words, a nod to the fabulous escape artist Harry Houdini who could disappear as a bound man and then miraculously reappear free of his chains.
As happens in times of war, social class barriers crumbled. The exclusive camera was a product of pre-war Dresden’s Welta workshop, a factory noted for its precision quality. It had been converted from producing cameras to provisioning the military with rifle scopes and artillery optics. An Italy bludgeoned by combat must have been a bargain basement bin for GIs.
The camera became an immigrant in America in the hands of a native who had been treated as an alien in his own land, as devalued as his camera.