Fred Stein (July 3, 1909 – September 27, 1967) was a street photographer in Paris and New York after he was forced to flee his native Germany by the Nazi threat in the early 1930s.

Though their circumstances were reduced, his mother encouraged his intellectual and artistic education by enrolling him in good schools and subscribing to the many museums in Dresden, which Stein "haunted as a youth" (as he later said).

Stein was bright and twice skipped grades at the Gymnasium (the German high school), a rare occurrence in those days.

He decided to become a public defender out of a concern for the plight of the poorest citizens, and attended law school at the University of Leipzig, from which he graduated after three years, in 1933.

Three weeks before he was to receive the German equivalent of admission to the bar, he was dismissed by the Nazi government for "racial and political reasons", and was forbidden as a Jew to use the public library, halting the work on his PhD thesis.

Yet Stein continued to give lectures and to ride around on his bike, distributing Anti-Nazi literature in the streets.

A close friend had written, urging them to come to Paris, and they left the next day under the pretext of a honeymoon trip.

Stein and his wife Lilo lived among a circle of expatriate artists and socialists and philosophers, frequenting the cafes and engaging in long conversation.

The Steins were some of the lucky few with an apartment, and there they sheltered refugees and cooked huge meals to feed their friends.

Unable to work as a lawyer, Stein took up photography using the first model Leica camera he and his wife had bought each other as a wedding present.

When France declared war on Germany in 1939, Stein was put in an internment camp for enemy aliens near Paris.

Later, in the confusion of the Nazis’ approach to Paris, he escaped and made his way south, hiding in isolated farmhouses.

Posing as a French national, she maneuvered her way through German controls, obtained a safe-conduct, and was reunited with Stein in a secret location.

Stein's work is held in the following permanent public collections: Because of the unobtrusiveness of the 35 mm camera, it was possible to catch "candid" shots of people in a wide variety of settings.

The very 'modern' Paris of fashion and design found its way into Stein's artistic vision as a juxtaposition of old and new, such as in the photograph "Chez" 1934—a flower vendor, pursuing her ancient trade from a wooden wagon, as her predecessors had for hundreds of years, oblivious to the very modern Chez painted on the wall above her.