Tag Archives: Jehovah's Witnesses

Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi Germany

A group that is often forgotten in the Holocaust narrative, is the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In Germany and the countries they occupied, an estimated 1500 Jehovah’s Witnesses were murdered during the Holocaust. There were about 35,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in the occupied countries and Germany.

They were persecuted because they adhered to the Bible’s teachings. When the Nazi state demanded that the Witnesses do what the Bible forbids, the Witnesses refused to comply. They chose to “obey God as ruler rather than men. On 24 April 1933, the Nazis began the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.

Prussia, Germany’s biggest state, imposed a ban on 24 June, explaining that the Bible Students were attracting and harbouring subversive former members of the Communist and Marxist parties. Its decree added that the Bible Students:

“…are obviously involved in agitation against political and religious institutions in word and written form. By declaring both institutions as agencies of Satan, they undermine the very foundation of life in the people’s community. In their numerous publications … they deliberately and maliciously misrepresent Bible accounts for the purpose of ridiculing State and church institutions. One of the characteristics of their struggle is a fanatical manipulation of their followers … It is therefore obvious that the above-mentioned association tends to be in complete opposition to the present state and its cultural and moral structures.”

Actions against the religious group and its individual members spanned the Nazi years from 1933 to 1945. Unlike Jews, Sinti and Roma (Gypsies), and others persecuted and killed by virtue of their birth, Jehovah’s Witnesses had the opportunity to escape persecution and personal harm by renouncing their religious beliefs. The courage the vast majority displayed in refusing to do so, in the face of torture, maltreatment in concentration camps, and sometimes execution, won them the respect of many contemporaries.

About 400 were beheaded, another 1,000-1,100 were murdered in concentration camps.

I have written about their persecution before, but want to focus today on three individual members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Helene Gotthold, a wife and mother of two children, had been arrested several times. In 1937, she was mistreated so badly during one interrogation that she lost her unborn baby. On 8 December 1944, she was beheaded by a guillotine in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin.

Gerhard Liebold, was only 20 years old when he was beheaded on 6 May 1943, two years after his father had been beheaded in the same prison. He wrote in his farewell letter to his family and fiancée, “Without the power of the Lord, I would not have been able to walk this path.”

Rudolf Auschner, was just 17 years old when he was beheaded on 22 September 1944. In his farewell letter to his mother, he wrote, “Many brothers have walked this path, and so will I.”

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses

https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/faq/jw-holocaust-facts-concentration-camps/#link0

https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/jehovahs-witnesses/

Holocaust Music

“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,” is a famous line which was used by a character in William Congreve’s 1697 play The Mourning Bride. And sometimes music does soothe the savage beast, but during the Holocaust, some of these ‘beasts’ were so evil that nothing could soothe them.

However, music did play an important role during the Holocaust and not always for the people in the camps or the ghettos. On occasion, it was also used to relay a universal message of tolerance

A Child of Our Time is a secular oratorio (a usually sacred musical work for soloists, chorus and orchestra intended for concert performance) by the British composer Michael Tippett, who also wrote the libretto(the text of an opera or musical). He composed it between 1939 and 1941, it was first performed at the Adelphi Theatre in London on 19 March 1944. The work was inspired by events that affected Tippett profoundly: the assassination in 1938 of a German diplomat by a young Jewish refugee, and the Nazi government’s reaction in the form of a violent pogrom against its Jewish population: Kristallnacht.

Tippett’s oratorio deals with these incidents in the context of the experiences of oppressed people generally and carries a strong pacifist message of ultimate understanding and reconciliation. The text’s recurrent themes of shadow and light reflect the Jungian psychoanalysis that Tippett underwent in the years immediately before writing the work. A Child of Our Time was named after a novel by anti-Nazi writer Odon von Horwath.

This is an excerpt of the text:

A star rises in mid-winter.
Behold the man! Behold the man!
The scapegoat! The scapegoat!
The child of our time.”

Erich Frost was a musician and devout Jehovah’s Witness, he was active in the religious resistance to Hitler’s authority. Caught smuggling pamphlets from Switzerland to Germany, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin where he composed the song “Steht Fest” (Stand Fast) in 1942. Later deported to a labour camp at Alderney, Channel Islands, Frost survived the war and returned to Germany to serve the Watchtower Society. “Fest steht,” reworked in English as “Forward, You Witnesses,” is among the most popular Jehovah’s Witness hymns. This performance, evoking some of the song’s original spirit, took place under Frost’s direction at an event held in Wiesbaden, Germany, during the 1960s.

“Standing firm in a great and difficult time
Is a people dedicated to the struggle for their King?
He teaches us to fight and win,
He teaches us to fight and win.
Bright is the eye and calm the blood;
Their sword is the truth; they wield it well:
What serves the enemy all its lies?
What serves the enemy all its lies?

refrain:
Jehovah’s Witnesses, undeterred!
The struggle is fierce,
The battle rages wild.
The fetters too are binding,
The chains are heavy,
But mighty the arm which shields you!
Jehovah’s Witnesses in enemy land
And far from the homeland, exiled from loved ones;
Lift up your gazes to Him,
Whose hand is already extended to you!

2.
Truth and justice, perverted by men;
The name of Jehovah, debased by devils:
These must reign once again!
These must reign once again!
Holy war–from the Highest Mouth–
It is called at the right hour
For the weak, which, it makes heroes,
For the weak, which, it makes heroes.

refrain

3.
Innocent in their cells, robbed of their freedom!
Scornfully the enemies raise up their heads:
They would like to rule over us,
They would like to rule over us.
Yet we, we hear in every place
Only the commandments of our King.
Only he can safely guide us.
Only he can safely guide us!

refrain

4.
Enemies’ threats, friends’ supplications
To desist from the struggle:
They can never shake our resolve.
They can never shake our resolve.
Hunger and beatings and harsh slavery
Are the cruel reward for our constancy,
And many are they that must grow pale.
And many are they that must grow pale!

refrain

5.
But one day the day will come which liberates
All those who are dedicated to the Highest Glory
From Satan’s dreary fetters,
From Satan’s dreary fetters!
Jubilation and singing prevail through the land,
Echoing from every mountain.
The Kingdom of our Lord has risen,
The Kingdom of our Lord has risen.

Gideon Klein was a Czech pianist and composer and was a prize-winning student at the Prague Conservatory. Klein organized the cultural life in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In 1940 he was offered a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London, but by that time, anti-Jewish legislation prevented his emigration. In Theresienstadt, he wrote works for a string quartet, a string trio, and a piano sonata. He died in unclear circumstances during the liquidation of the Fürstengrube camp in January 1945. In December 1941, deported by the Nazis to the Terezín concentration camp, Gideon Klein, along with Leoš Janáček’s pupils, Pavel Haas, Hans Krása, and Schoenberg’s pupil Viktor Ullmann, he became one of the major composers at that camp.

About a dozen of Gideon Klein’s Terezín compositions and arrangements survived the war. Of these, the brief choral piece “Spruch” (Verdict) has come to light only relatively recently. It was written for and dedicated to Freizeitgestaltung Chairman Moritz Henschel for his 65th birthday, 21 February 1944.

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/song/stand-fast

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/latest/remembrance-great-composers/gideon-klein/

https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/theresienstadt/klein-gideon/

https://www.schott-music.com/en/a-child-of-our-time-no175102.html

https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-music/articles/music-and-the-holocaust

https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/music-of-the-holocaust-highlights-from-the-collection/music-of-the-holocaust/a-child-of-our-time

https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/music-of-the-holocaust-highlights-from-the-collection/music-of-the-holocaust/verdict

https://www.ushmm.org/collections/the-museums-collections/collections-highlights/music-of-the-holocaust-highlights-from-the-collection/music-of-the-holocaust/stand-fast

29 May 1940—The Ban on Bible Study

The Jehovah Witnesses are often forgotten as Holocaust victims.

An estimated 1,000 German Jehovah’s Witnesses died or were murdered in concentration camps and prisons during the Nazi era, as did 400 Witnesses from other countries, including about 90 Austrians and 130 Dutch Jehovah Witnesses.

On 29 May 1940, the Vereeniging of Bible researchers (The name used by the Jehovah’s Witnesses) was banned by the German occupier in the Netherlands. The office in Heemstede, the Bethel House, was closed on 6 July—as well as the printing works in Haarlem and the printing presses—were confiscated. Services were also no longer allowed to be invested. However, the Jehovah’s continued to preach and evangelize leading to arrests. Until the end of April 1941, the Sicherheitsplizei (Sipo) together with Dutch agents arrested 113 people.

The Netherlands had only 500 Jehovah’s Witnesses in May 1940. Nevertheless, the occupying forces banned the organization, which was then still called the Vereeniging van Boekenvorschers, on May 29 and had the headquarters in Heemstede closed. Printing presses were confiscated and the Bible researchers were no longer allowed to engage in services. However, the Witnesses did not mind and continued to preach and evangelize. They put up placards saying, “Persecuting God’s witnesses is a crime” and “Jehovah will punish the persecutors with eternal destruction.”

As in Germany, this unaccommodating attitude led to arrests. Until the end of April 1941, the Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo), together with Dutch agents, arrested 113 people. Also, W.H. Kuik, an itinerant preacher, helped. He was arrested and released after signing the abjuration statement. Kuik used the slogan: ‘I will comb all of Rotterdam and Schiedam so that there are no more Jehovah’s Witnesses left’. The ex-Jehovah also assisted in the capture of Jews and illegal workers. After the war, he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

By the end of 1941, 241 Jehovah’s Witnesses had already been arrested. They ended up in Camp Amersfoort or in Vught. In Vught they secretly held Bible readings and worship services. From these camps, they were transported to German camps. There they were often the target of teasing and abuse because they persisted in their faith. One of the victims was Betje Honders (pictured above) from Utrecht. She attended a baptismal service on September 6, 1941, which was betrayed by the SD. The SD arrested 29 Witnesses, including 31-year-old Betje.

She was imprisoned in the Oranjehotel in Scheveningen and deported to Ravensbrück in October. There, too, Betje remained true to her faith and refused to carry out certain activities, such as sewing clothes for German soldiers. Probably for this reason, she was transferred to Auschwitz in the autumn of 1942, where she died in March 1943.

During the war, about 500 Jehovah’s Witnesses were arrested in the Netherlands. More than 300 of them ended up in a concentration camp and 130 of them died from illness, deprivation or the bullet.

https://kunst-en-cultuur.infonu.nl/geschiedenis/180722-de-vervolging-van-jehovas-getuigen-tijdens-de-oorlog.html

https://www.oorlogsbronnen.nl/thema/Verbod%20op%20Vereeniging%20van%20Bijbelvorschers

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnesses

Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Holocaust

First of all let me start by saying I am not a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I don’t agree with some aspects of their religion. However that doesn’t mean I don’t respect their faith, because I do. I respect anyone’s faith once it doesn’t include hatred and violence. Among my friends are Jews, Christians, , Buddhists, Baháʼí and Atheists. In fact I remember a few years ago I was doing a course in web development and I gave some of my fellow students a lift home, that time I had a microcosm of several faiths in my car, a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim and an atheists, all connected via one thing, education.

However the title of the blog is Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Holocaust and that is what I will be focusing on.

I have done blogs on the subject before but I found it important to do another one, because the more I read about it the more I realize how little is known about this.

Unlike the Jews and Roma victims who were persecuted and murdered by virtue of their birth, the Jehovah’s witnesses could save themselves by denouncing their faith. The courage the vast majority showed in refusing to do so, in the face of torture, maltreatment in concentration camps, and sometimes execution, won them the respect of many contemporaries.

Rather then going into too deep of details I will focus on just a few stories.

The picture at the start of the blog is of the Kusserow family. They were active in distributing religious literature and teaching Bible study classes in their home. Their house had been under intense scrutiny.

The oldest son,Wilhelm Kusserow,had been arrested for refusing to join the army. In 1940 he had made it clear to the judge that he only obeyed God’s law and not Hitler’s laws. He interpreted God’s command “thou shalt not kill” literally and refused to serve in the German army

For this he was executed by a firing squad in Muenster prison on April 27.

His younger brother, , also refused to join the army for the same reason . He was executed on March 28,1942 in Brandenburg prison by guillotine , aged 20.

Helene Gotthold was executed by guillotine in Berlin’s Ploetzensee Prison, on December 8. 1944.

Helene’s husband was arrested in 1936.basically for practicing his faith After searching her house, where they found Jehovah’s witnesses literature the Gestapo arrested her in 1937; she was beaten with rods and lost her unborn baby. The court gave her an 18-month sentence.

Helene and her husband were arrested again in February 1944. They were imprisoned in Essen, however after the prison had been destroyed in an Allied bombing raid, they were transferred to a prison in Potsdam. On August 4, the People’s Court sentenced Helene and five other Witnesses to death for illegally holding Bible meetings and undermining the nation’s morale. Before her execution, Helene was allowed to write a letter to her husband and children.

Helene was executed by guillotine in Berlin’s Ploetzensee Prison on December 8, 1944. Her family survived and resumed their Jehovah’s Witness missionary work in Germany.

I think many people underestimate the bravery of the Jehovah’s witnesses, still to this day. After reading and researching for this blog and the other blogs I did, I have found a new respect for this group of Christians. Does that mean I agree with all of their believes, of course it doesn’t but I don’t expect anyone to agree with all of my believes either. One thing I do know though, if I could have saved my live by denouncing my faith, there is a great chance I would have done that.

Sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/id-card/helene-gotthold

https://www.fold3.com/page/286019312/jehovahs-witnesses-and-the-holocaust/stories

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/the-kusserow-family

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