The workshop of Otto Weidt manufactured brushes and brooms. Practically all of his employees were blind and deaf Jews. Aside from these handicapped people, he also hired healthy Jewish workers which was strictly forbidden by German law. When the deportation of Jews began, he fought the Gestapo over the fate of every one of his Jewish workers. Arguing that they were essential to the war effort and the fulfillment of orders commissioned by the army, he was successful in securing their release. Otto Weidt was not Jewish.