2

Part I - Introduction and Seminar

NARRATOR: This uniform belonged to Helmut Knoller. He was one of Jehovah's
Witnesses. Like him, thousands of Witnesses were thrown into Nazi prisons and
camps for what they believed-a small number compared with the millions extermi-
nated by Nazi terror. Yet nearly 2,000 Witnesses died, more than 250 by execution.
From the start of the Nazi regime, this small Christian group were brutally assault-
ed -but not silenced. They let the world know that the Nazi killing machine was en-
gulfing not only them but Jews, Poles, and others.
The history of Jehovah's Witnesses-how they stood firm in their beliefs and how they
spoke out-is a record few have heard about today. It is a story that must be told.
MILTON: I'd like to welcome you to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
It is both a privilege and an honor to have you as our guests today because your sto-
ry is an extremely important one.
NARRATOR: On September 29, 1994 historians from Germany, Britain, and the
United States spoke about Jehovah’s Witnesses. Together with survivors and repre-
sentatives of the Watch Tower Society they revealed remarkable details
BERENBAUM: They would not utter the words `Heil Hitler.' And it is very intriguing
to feel the social dissident character of that when you walk into a room and you hear
the words `Hell Hitler' and somebody says `Good morning.' Or you walk into a room
and the meeting is concluded and you say ‘Heil Hitler’ and someone says ‘Auf Wie-
dersehen’ and thats an act of singular civil courage and of unimaginable human de-
cency.
NARRATOR: Dr. Detlef Garbe and Volk Brebeck are directors of Concentration
Camp Memorials in Germany. They explained why the stand of Jehovah’s Witness-
es was unique. Willi Pohl was one of more than 20 survivors present for the seminar.
He and James Pellechia represented the Watch Tower Society. They explained the
reasons for the bold stand taken by the Witnesses. 1) Jehovah is the Supreme Sov-
ereign 2) Political neutrality 3) Belief in the resurrection.
Even before the Nazis took power Watch Tower publications warned of the dangers.
– “National Socialism is a movement that is acting directly in the service of man’s
enemy the Devil” (Golden Age, October 15, 1929) Professor Christine King, Vice-
 3
chancellor of Staffordshire University analyzed the moral battle waged between the
Witnesses and the Nazis.
KING: And stand firm indeed the Witnesses did, as we know, to death, not a simple
death, but a horrific death by torture. One of the SS guards said of Witnesses sing-
ing hymns in the death cell, `I could run a steam-roller over you lot and it wouldn't
quiet you.' And it happens again and again. And it is because the Nazis really do not
understand the nature of the enemy they have taken on. They think that the steam-
roller will silence faith, and integrity, and courage, and the family belief that Jeho-
vah's Witnesses have, and of course, it cannot under any circumstances.
NARRATOR: King interviewed two Austrian Witness survivors and then offered a
summary.
KING: I think what we’ve learned today and what we learn in the work that the Holo-
caust Memorial Museum has done in celebrating this story of Jehovah’s Witnesses
is that Jehovah’s Witnesses did speak out, they spoke out from the beginning, they
spoke out with one voice, they spoke out with a tremendous courage.

Part II: Pre - 1933 Germany

NARRATOR: Germany struggles to recover from its World War I wounds.
Well-known as "Bibelforscher, " or Bible Students, before 1931, Jehovah's Witness-
es offer comfort and hope but also warn of rising militarism. They are a familiar sight
on streets and doorsteps distributing tremendous amounts of Bible literature.
In Magdeburg, at a Watch Tower plant, called Bethel, a million copies of the maga-
zine The Golden Age rolled off the presses each month. The Hildebrandts were
among the 200 volunteers living at Bethel. He ran a book sewing machine. She
cleaned rooms and worked in the laundry.
HILDEBRANDT: Bethel in Magdeburg was, at least for those days, a large and im-
pressive printery with several buildings.
POHL: I’m now on the roof of our printery in Magdeburg. Here below there were two
rotary presses.
NARRATOR: The Magdeburg factory turned out 2,000,000 books and 5,000,000
booklets each year. This publishing and preaching did not go unnoticed by the grow-
ing Nazi movement.
GARBE: There was talk about Jehovah's Witnesses because of things that were re-
pulsive to the National Socialists. They were talked about because they refused mili-
tary service, and because they did not give allegiance to the fatherland as a German
ought to, according to the National Socialists.
NARRATOR: The Nazis falsely branded Jehovah's Witnesses as Communists,
menaces to the State, conspirators with the Jews to take over the world. By 1933 the
stage was set for battle!

Part III - 1933 Germany

NARRATOR: The seeds that set in motion the rise of Nazism were sown on the bat-
tlefields of World War I.
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CONWAY: In 1914 the German armies, the French armies, the Russian armies, the
English armies all went to war. And all of their church people proclaimed that God
was on their side. Nothing did the church more harm than this mutually exclusive
claim to have divine support. By 1918 the cynicism, the skepticism, about the
church’s credibility was so great that the vast majority of those who served in the
trenches came back thoroughly disillusioned. And no longer willing to accept the
moral authority of a church which had mislead them so badly. These are the young
men who emerged from the trenches who 15 years later are the leading figures in
the Nazi party.
NARRATOR: On January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler comes to power - appointed
Chancellor by President von Hindenburg. Hopes run high for a strong, new Germa-
ny.
LIEBSTER: The majority of people are inspired by propaganda or by the people
around them. It’s perhaps not out of wickedness but they are just swept along by a
river of propaganda.
NARRATOR: The Reichstag building, the seat of the German Parliament, burns.
The Nazis immediately blame the Communists, and Hitler pressures President von
Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree. The Enabling Act soon follows.
Hitler, now with dictatorial powers, suspends human rights. Anyone could be arrest-
ed and imprisoned without trial.
The Nazis now have a weapon to silence their enemies. In one German state after
another, the police shut down meetings of the Witnesses and prohibit their
door-to-door preaching.
On April 24 Nazis swarmed into Magdeburg to stop the printing operation.
POHL: The entire property was searched but nothing was found that could be used
against us. We were active only in the field of religion.
NARRATOR: The Watch Tower property was returned and the ban in Prussia, Ger-
many’s largest state was lifted. But in other states the bans remained. So, the Wit-
nesses launched a campaign to inform the German government that they were not
subversives.
KING: Right from the very beginning the Jehovah’s Witnesses were very clear in
their position, their stance, and they kept their position of political neutrality. And in
the early days there were attempts to the authorities what this means and that in fact
it wasn’t a political threat
NARRATOR: Representing the 25,000 Witnesses in Germany delegates from all
over the country gather for a convention in Berlin to adopt a resolution.
POHL: In this declaration we explain that we have absolutely no political goals. That
our activity was purely religious and that we wish to make use of the freedom of be-
lief and of religion in accordance with the promise made in the party platform and al-
so by government officials and that therefore this matter of partial bans would be in-
vestigated and they should be lifted.
NARRATOR: The country was blanketed by more that 2,000,000 copies of the dec-
laration. Konrad Frankar shared in the distribution. He was arrested and sent to the
Austoven labor camp.
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GARBE: There was to be no place in this new Germany for Bible Student ideas, for
the religious teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
NARRATOR: Prussia issued a second ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The police were
ordered to shut them down again.
POHL: On June 28, here a band of 30 storm troopers, Hitler's Brownshirts, forced
their way in and occupied the premises. A ban was declared. No one was allowed to
study the Bible or to pray in this house called the Bible House. When this building
was closed, we no longer had a central office but were forced to go underground.
NARRATOR: This is the last German issue of the Watchtower printed in Magdeburg.
The presses fall silent. A few weeks later, the Nazis return. Twenty-five truckloads of
Bible literature are carted off to the Magdeburg city limits and burned.
GARBE: The vast majority of the churches welcomed the ban on Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses in 1933. Documents show that in the spring of 1933 the churches suggested
to the authorities a ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses. Of course, the National Socialist
government pricked up its ears at such suggestions. They were intending to do
something against Jehovah’s Witnesses anyway. The fact that the churches assisted
them was greatly welcomed by the National Socialist government. There is also evi-
dence that Jehovah’s Witnesses were aided by pastors but here again one has to
say that evidence of such cases is rare.

Part IV: Nazi Assault - Battle Lines Drawn

GARBE: Put in relative terms, the murder of six million Jews as a crime by the State,
carried out with factory-like precision, was certainly an occurrence without equal in
the history of mankind.
But there was also something distinctive about the persecution of Jehovah's Wit-
nesses. They were persecuted with very great severity and brutality. The goal was to
destroy this religious group; there were to be no more Witnesses in Germany.
KING: From an early date the Witnesses are identified as a key enemy, partly be-
cause of their very public stance and their very public refusal to accept even the
smallest elements of National Socialism which didn’t fit their faith and their beliefs.
NARRATOR: Hitler gave the people jobs. He restored their faith in the fatherland.
He is hailed as their savior.
But the Witnesses could not give to a man what they believed belonged to God.
Thus, a battle line was drawn over a simple greeting - "Heil Hitler." Jehovah's Wit-
nesses refused to say "Heil Hitler" because it meant "salvation comes from Hitler." At
his job in a steel mill, one Witness faced this test.
DICKMANN: I was the only one among 2,000 who did not raise my hand and did not
return the German salute. Every day running the gauntlet, since I was required to
give the German salute, and I simply said "Good day."
GARBE: Whoever did not do so attracted the fury of the Nationalist Socialists. At
first there were nasty words, sometimes a beating, but soon enough it led to the first
arrests.
NARRATOR: In 1934 secret Witness reports smuggled out of Germany revealed
disturbing facts.
 6
NARRATOR #2: About 4000 house searches have been carried out. 1000 arrests
made of which some 400 have been sent to concentration camps. And roughly 200
cases of ill treatment occurred. Each blow was accompanied by the words “Do you
still believe in Jehovah?”
NARRATOR: Nazi intimidation affected not only the Witnesses religious life but also
their livelihood.
JOHN: Before they were directly arrested and sentenced by the special courts to im-
prisonment and later to protective custody they had already suffered under economic
and social sanctions The loss of their jobs, their businesses were boycotted or their
pensions or unemployment money was confiscated
NARRATOR: A typical letter of dismissal said: “Following your refusal to use the
German greeting your contract of employment is terminated”..
LIEBSTER: Yes, I lost my job and here I was. Now we had a lot of time for preach-
ing.
NARRATOR: Children were drawn into the battle. Six-year-old Paul Gerhard Kus-
serow, like other Witness children, was pressured by students and teachers.
KUSSEROW: As soon as I entered school the head teacher and the pupils confront-
ed me and tried to make me say "Heil Hitler," to salute the flag, and to sing Nazi
songs. Going to school was not nice, since one never knew what would happen.
NARRATOR: More than 800 children were taken away from their Witness parents
by the Gestapo. Paul Gerhard, along with his brother and sister, was placed in a Na-
zi school.
KUSSEROW: The educational home in Dosson was virtually a prison. My family
could only visit me in secret.
NARRATOR: Simone Liebster was only 12 when the Nazis snatched her from her
home.
LIEBSTER: The last night that I spent with my mother was very moving. It took place
in a vineyard outside a castle in Minzburg. The evening before I entered the peniten-
tiary house in Constance we sang a Kingdom song together, then we prayed, and I
remember that momma say to Jehovah, “Watch over my little girl, allow her to stay
faithful.”
NARRATOR: Three years under ban, and the Witnesses are still active. The Gesta-
po have to mobilize a special unit to hunt them down. A confidential Gestapo report
boasted that in just one sweep they arrested 120 Witnesses.
KING: Jehovah's Witnesses were amongst the first of the prisoners to go into Da-
chau which was the first, the so-called model concentration camp, and into the labor
camps, and I have evidence of that in 1934 and certainly by 1935.
GARBE: From 1935 onward very many Jehovah’s Witnesses were in National So-
cialist prisons and camps and in the pre-war concentration camps Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses comprised a relatively large group when compared to the total number of
prisoners. Pre-war, about five to ten percent of concentration camp inmates were
Jehovah’s Witnesses. Apart from the concentration camps there were Jehovah’s
Witnesses in almost all prisons.
REHWALD: Of my family of eight persons six were in detention, four brothers, one
sister, and my mother. Together we spent about 43 years in detention.
 7
HARTSTANG: I was in three concentration camps and I once counted thirty pris-
ons.
NARRATOR: From 1937 on Witnesses released from prison were sent directly to
concentration camps. By the end of that year 6000 Witnesses were in Nazi prisons
and camps
BREBECK: Starting in 1937, Jehovah's Witnesses were given a purple triangle as a
sign. Jehovah's Witnesses were the only religious group that made up a separate
category of inmates. That was not the case with prisoners of other religions who
were not very numerous anyway.
JACOBEIT: And the triangle was relatively big, so that a person must have been
able to see it from quite a distance, and the color also, this stigma of the prisoner's
category.
LUDOLPH: Whenever I saw a prisoner with a purple triangle then I knew for sure
this was a sister. It helped me recognize that this is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
GARBE: The Jehovah’s Witnesses received especially severe treatment from the
SS because they put up such great resistance because in their conduct they dis-
played much resistance.
Drawing a comparison with other groups as a whole one can say, that with the ex-
ception of the Jews, no other group had to suffer so much under the National Social-
ists.
HOLLWEG: Upon arrival I was beaten into unconsciousness in the political section.
When I came to, I could spit out my teeth. I would not even have survived the first
night if Brother Erich Nicolicek, who was next to me in bed, had not taken me into his
arms and warmed me with his own body so that I recovered somewhat.
NIKLASCH: You see in the camp you just got a slice of bread in the morning, noth-
ing at noon, and in the evening a bowl of watery soup. I lost 25 kilograms in a month.
JACOBEIT: The Bible Students were the very first, among the very first women who
came here from other camps. Mostly from two other concentration camps. The first
arrivals here at Ravensbrück in May 1939 were, contrary to what was believed until
now, not mainly political prisoners, but as we now know, mostly Bible Students.
NARRATOR: The Nazis, obsessed with breaking the Witnesses' stubborn commit-
ment, stepped up the psychological assault and made them an extraordinary offer.
Each Witness could buy his freedom for a price - his signature and his faith. Wit-
nesses in prisons and camps were repeatedly handed a piece of paper and a pen.
Very few signed.
POETZINGER: When I was to be released from prison, I was given a paper to sign.
It required that I give up my faith and recognize the German government as the
highest authority, place myself under the Hitler government, and consider the Bible
as a false doctrine. I said: "That's out of the question!" The commander said I could
think about it during the night. And I said, “I don’t need to think about it! You can take
note of that right now, the matter was settled as far as I was concerned.” So he said
“The you will be sent to a concentration camp.”
NARRATOR: Madame Genevieve de Gaulle, a niece of General Charles de Gaulle,
was imprisoned by the Nazis in 1944 as a member of the French Resistance. In Ra-
 8
vensbruck she met Jehovah's Witnesses. By the time she arrived at the camp,
many had been captive for ten years.
DE GAULLE: What I admired a lot in them was they could have left at any time just
by signing a renunciation of their faith. Ultimately, these women, who appeared to be
so weak and worn out, were stronger than the SS, who had power and all the means
at their disposal. They had their strength and it was their willpower that no one could
beat
NARRATOR: Communication with loved ones back home become subject to SS in-
terference.
KUSSEROW: In the concentration camps, Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen, Bible
Students, as they were then called, were not allowed the normal correspondence,
just three or four lines. They were allowed to write, “I’m well, Greetings” and so forth.
NARRATOR: The frustrated SS stamped on the letters “The prisoner remains as be-
fore, a stubborn Bible Student.” To those receiving such a letter it meant that the
loved one was holding true to his faith Many Witness couples were separated for
years, like Heinrich and Aenne Dickmann. When they discovered that they were both
in the Ravensbruck camp, they risked their lives just to see each other.
DICKMANN: From Buchenwald I was put in the camp where Aenne was. And there
is where I had the chance to see my wife again after seven years. She had to bring
laundry for the SS to the main gate. And I had to pick it up there. And so we had the
chance to see each other after seven years. But without a word, since they were
standing in the guard tower, watching. They would have hanged us both!

Part V - Jehovah's Witnesses Speak Out

HESCHEL: The position of the Jehovah's Witnesses is a unique position of Chris-
tians, of all Christians of all kinds, in Nazi Germany. It stands by itself. People living
in Germany knew who the Jehovah's Witnesses were and knew what they stood for.
NARRATOR: From the beginning Jehovah’s Witnesses and their publications spoke
out against Nazi aggression. In the English language Golden Age blunt editorial car-
toons exposed the spreading cancer of Nazism. In 1934 the Golden Age carried a
stinging expose of the Nazi crackdown on the Witnesses including raids, arrests and
sentences to concentration camps. Eyewitness Otto Hartstang wrote an inside report
on Esterwegen Concentration Camp.
HARTSTANG: We were put into penal block 9, a barrack that housed brothers only.
NARRATOR: The 1934 Basel convention marked a turning point for the Witnesses.
Plans were set for a worldwide protest directly to Hitler on October 7th. German Wit-
nesses met in secret.
POHL: On that day at nine o’clock in the morning all of Jehovah’s Witnesses con-
gregated together in small groups. Jehovah’s Witnesses all over the world would
send a telegram to the Hitler government.
NARRATOR #2: “Your ill treatment of Jehovah’s Witnesses shocks all good people
of earth and dishonors God’s name. Refrain from further persecuting Jehovah’s Wit-
nesses otherwise God will destroy you and your National Party.”
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NARRATOR: Hitler did not budge but he did react. In a sworn statement govern-
ment official Karl Vittig described Hitler’s rage.
He screamed, “This brood will be exterminated in Germany.” A steady stream of
Watchtower literature continued to flow into Germany. The Gestapo tightened the
net, making more arrests. It did little to stop the Witnesses. After release from camps
and prisons many Witnesses went underground and continued to speak out. They
found ingenious ways to reach the public.
POETZINGER: We applied to a company reshaping old hats and hence we went
from house to house. And since we went from house to house of course we saw op-
portunities to witness to the people. And at the bottom of the bag, underneath the old
hats, we had a second layer containing booklets. So, if anyone caught us they would
only have found the old hats first.
NARRATOR: Nazi newspapers complained about another Witness tool for preach-
ing, specially built gramophones that boldly spoke out their message. Some records
were sneaked in from Switzerland, others were produced within Nazi Germany by
Gerhard Cloie, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Gestapo chief Himmler ordered the
gramophone problem stopped.
The 1936 Summer Olympic Games in Berlin - Nazi Germany is on display at its best.
But it is only a front. Right on the heels of the Olympic Games, the Witnesses launch
a campaign to reveal the ugly face of the Nazi regime. Nazi persecution is exposed
in a convention resolution adopted at Lucerne, Switzerland. Two hundred thousand
copies of the Lucerne Resolution are distributed in Germany on one December night
in 1936. Dr. Elka Himburger calls the campaign “a particularly spectacular form of
public proclamation.”
MARKERT: And thus the whole populace was pointed to Hitler’s unjust treatment of
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
NARRATOR: Outraged Nazi officials claimed that the charges were false. So on
June 30, 1937 the Witnesses answered back in an open letter full of details of beat-
ings and murders by the Gestapo complete with names, places and dates. Max
Hollweg took special precautions when preparing to send the letter to leading offi-
cials in the district of Koblechs.
HOLLWEG: I did it in Milbacktahl sitting beneath trees and bushes, wearing rubber
gloves so as not to leave fingerprints.
NARRATOR: According to Dr. Wolfgang Bentz these two campaigns made clear to
the population the criminal character of the Nazi state.
POHL: That made the Gestapo, or the secret state police of the Hitler government,
furious because they saw that a strong organization was active in the country which
tore off their mask. So there were a lot of arrests in many places.
NARRATOR: Willi and Editha Pohl were caught in the Gestapo net. They spent
eight months in the Hamburg/Fuhlsbuttel prison camp. Whenever the Nazis
smashed an underground organization, another quickly filled the breach.
HOMBACH: The Gestapo reckoned that every time they arrested a group, we were
completely finished. They were utterly mistaken. But right up until the end of the war,
The Watchtower was being distributed all over Germany.
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NARRATOR: Harry Dowttey, an Englishman, was one link in the network. Because
he headed the Hamburg office of a large American meat company he could receive
the Watchtower by uncensored mail.
SCHROEDER: As soon as he received his magazines he passed them along to the
central European office in Switzerland where the latest information was translated
and conveyed to the brothers.
NARRATOR: March, 1938 Hitler’s troops crossed the Austrian border. Soon the
Witnesses would be forced underground in country after country. Key organizers, Er-
ich Frost, Arthur Winkler, and others put their lives on the line for fellow believers as
they tried to keep one step ahead of the Gestapo.
SCHOEN: In the underground work in Austria my responsibility was to mimeograph
the magazines and printing them and bring them to the several congregations right
down to the Swiss border.
SIMONE LIEBSTER: At night, in a small apartment, we shut off the windows with
blankets, put quilts on the table, and the machines on the quilts, so that the noise
would not be heard. It was here that the Watchtowers were translated and repro-
duced.
Afterwards, we had to dismantle and hide everything, because if the Germans had
found any of the equipment, it would have meant the death of whomever the material
belonged to.
NARRATOR: Another conduit for smuggling literature in Germany was a Finnish
doctor, Felix Kersten, Himmler’s personal physician. Kirsten’s estate, Hartzwalde,
was near Ravensbrück. He used his connections with Himmler to get prisoners to
work on his farm.
GUSTAVSSON: Then, through Himmler, Dr. Kersten tried to obtain some Jehovah’s
Witnesses. And he was able to because Himmler did a lot for Kirsten.
NARRATOR: Kersten took prisoner Anni Gustavsson to his home in Sweden as a
maid. There she could obtain the Watchtower freely. Kersten offered to carry litera-
ture secretly to his Witness workers at Hartzwalde. So, whenever he left for Germa-
ny he would come to Annie first with a question.
GUSTAVSSON: “Do you have something? I would gladly take it with me. I put it in
my bag, my coat pocket, because I won’t be checked”. And he did it willingly.
NARRATOR: The magazines were smuggled between Hartzwalde and the nearby
camps, Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück. Thus the birth of another communication
network.
The book Crusade Against Christianity was published in German, French, and
Polish. This 1938 Witness expose included diagrams of concentration camps and
firsthand reports of cruel mistreatment of the Witnesses in Germany as documented
by the Swiss Watch Tower office. Nobel prize winner Dr. Thomas Mann wrote:
NARRATOR #2: "I have read your book and it’s terrible documentation with deepest
emotion. You have done your duty in publishing this book and bringing these facts to
light. It seems to me that there is no greater appeal to the world's conscience."
NARRATOR: On October 2, 1938, 50 radio stations around the world carried
WatchTower President Rutherford's lecture "Fascism or Freedom." He spoke out
against the vicious attacks on the Jews.
 11
RUTHERFORD: "In Germany, the common people are peace-loving. The Devil has
put his representative Hitler in control, a man who is of unsound mind, cruel, mali-
cious and ruthless. And who acts in utter disregard of the liberties of the people To-
gether with his backers he rules with an iron hand. He cruelly persecutes the Jews
because they were once Jehovah's covenant people and bore the name of Jehovah,
and because Christ Jesus was a Jew."
NARRATOR: Just one month later, Nazi hatred for the Jews would explode in all its
ugliness.
POHL: On November 10, 1938, I came to work here early in the morning, and we
were surprised. All of the shops had been destroyed. The windows had been
smashed. Glass was scattered all over the street. Everyone was walking on glass. It
was the morning after Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht was a Nazi campaign whereby all
Jewish businesses throughout Germany were destroyed or Jewish offices, every-
thing was ruined.
HESCHEL: November 9, 1938, came the massive destruction of Judaism, an end to
German Judaism when almost all the synagogues in Germany were burned down
overnight. On the night of Kristallnacht, 20,000 Jews were arrested and sent to con-
centration camps in Germany.
NARRATOR: As the sinister Nazi intent towards the Jews became clear, how would
the religious community react? As churches? And as individuals?
CONWAY: The fact of the matter is that the middle of the road Christians were deep-
ly influenced by the ways of Nazi propaganda. So when the `Crystal Night' pogrom
takes place in November 1938, that shocking and very visible evidence of Nazi an-
ti-Semitism, the churches were totally silent.
GARBE: Not a few representatives of the churches called publicly for a hatred of the
Jews. Such a situation was definitely not the case among Jehovah's Witnesses. An-
ti-Semitism carries characteristics of racism and the last thing Jehovah’s Witnesses
would do was to regard the Jews as being of less merit simply because of their
origin. For them, all persons were of the same merit, were equal.
HESCHEL: What if the Lutheran Church had acted the way the Witnesses had act-
ed? What if the Catholics had? In my opinion the whole history would have been
very different.
NARRATOR: The hundreds of Jehovah's Witnesses in the camps began to see a
large influx of Jewish prisoners. The magazine Consolation asked, "How can one
remain silent?"
HESCHEL: I would say that the support that people felt, not only Jews, buy anyone
who was a prisoner in a concentration camp would feel from Jehovah’s Witnesses
would be on the level of, first, spiritual integrity, and second, there’s also evidence
that Witnesses were helpful to people on a more physical level of nurturance, with
food, with medical help and so on.
KING: I have never met or heard a survivor who does not remember the Witnesses.
And they all say similar things, very small group of people, very clearly identified,
they’ll talk about the purple triangle that they wore on their prison uniforms, they will
talk about the way they shared food and cared for each other and they will talk about
 12
how they were willing to talk to, help, and support other prisoners. It really appears
to be stuck in people’s minds.
HESCHEL: Jehovah’s Witnesses established networks of support for one another
and for others also and in fact, even in concentration camps, there was a kind of
sense of community among Jehovah’s Witnesses.
NARRATOR: Witnesses in many camps held secret meetings with a lookout posted
at the barracks door. They dared to read, pray, and even sing softly together. Bibles
and literature were smuggled in by Witnesses transferred from other camps.
RENWALD: Brothers from Buchenwald who were also put in this work unit had
some food or literature, Watchtower articles. We studied these articles secretly in the
dormitory. That strengthened us very much.
HOLLWEG: Naturally we took every opportunity to speak with our fellow prisoners
about the Biblical hope.
JOHN: They could punish them when they observed that Bible Students attempted
to witness to other inmates. Then they were punished, but the SS could not stop
their activity, could do nothing about it.
GARBE: Individuals fellow inmates in camp even went so far as to take on the faith
of the Witnesses and there were even cases where baptisms were carried out se-
cretly in concentration camps.
KOSTANDA: It was a beautiful warm Saturday in May and the prisoners were lying
on the grass and next to me was also one with a purple triangle. I asked him “Tell
me, what does it mean, Bibelforscher?” That was my first contact.
NARRATOR: Max Liebster was arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen for being a
Jew. He and the other prisoners were warned repeatedly not to speak to Jehovah's
Witnesses.
MAX LIEBSTER: There were around 400 Jehovah's Witnesses in Sachsenhausen.
As soon as young German Witnesses arrived, they were given 25 strokes.
They were locked away, surrounded by barbed wire, and the camp commander of-
ten announced that anyone speaking to Jehovah's Witnesses would be punished
with 25 strokes.
GARBE: The main reason why the SS isolated the Witnesses from other inmates
was so that they would have no opportunity to influence their fellow prisoners by
spreading their faith.
NARRATOR: Literature was also miniaturized to make it easy to hide. For Instance,
there was a matchbook size edition of 1934 publication “Jehovah”.
SCHMIDT: This miniature Bible, that is the entire Bible, that was the most precious
thing that I had.
NARRATOR: Joseph Rewald and Godfried Malorn were left alone in a camp work-
shop. They seized the opportunity to made hand written copies of a smuggled
Watchtower.
REWALD: While he was writing we suddenly heard a noise on the steps and a SS
officer came upstairs. His first glance naturally fell on the manuscript that the brother
was writing. He took it out of his hand. He gave me a piercing look and said, “Do you
not know that this is forbidden here?” I said “Yes, sir. But that is why we are here. “
 13
NARRATOR: Amazingly, Wawelsburg work camp itself becomes a source of Bible
literature after a major underground printing operation is finally discovered and shut
down by the Nazis in April 1943. Its organizer is arrested and beheaded. The Wit-
ness prisoners in Wawelsburg work camp picked up the slack by setting up a secret
printery right under the noses of the SS guards.
JOHN: Had they been discovered they would have been sentenced to death right
away. We know that they procured a typewriter, where the got it from we unfortu-
nately do not know.
NARRATOR: Max reveals the details publicly for the first time.
HOLLWEG: Part of the industrial premises caught fire and we were able to save a
typewriter from the flames and put it inside for ourselves.
NARRATOR: With the typewriter they made stencils to use in the duplicating ma-
chine built with smuggled parts.
HOLLWEG: We did the duplicating in the dormitory. Work on the typewriter was
done using a silencer.
NARRATOR: Max, who was the camp electrician, rigged up a warning light to alert
them if the guards approached. The prisoners printed enough literature to supply
Witnesses in northwest Germany. How was it smuggled out of the camp? Max found
a way.
HOLLWEG: Getting the material outside was not difficult. We could pass though the
electrically charged wire fence as I constructed the insulators in such a way that one
could pull the wires apart.
NARRATOR: There was also a song that made its way out of the camp. It got to
Switzerland and soon spread to the Witnesses across Europe.
SIMONE LIEBSTER: We received a song via Switzerland written by brother Frost in
Sachsenhausen entitled “Forward You Witnesses” I often hummed this song during
my internment and this song encouraged me a lot.

Part VI - Nazi Assault-Death Sentences

NARRATOR: September 1, 1939. German army forces invade Poland. The world
begins its bloody plunge into total war. The Nazi government has no tolerance for
conscientious objectors. Heinrich Dickmann and his brother August were in Sach-
senhausen. The SS tried a new pressure tactic on the Witnesses.
DICKMANN: Soon after the war broke out on September 1st, we Jehovah’s Witness-
es had to assembly at the entrance.
REHWALD: August Dickmann had refused to perform military service, and Bar-
anowsky, the commander, whose nickname was Foursquare, asked Himmler to con-
firm the death sentence. That came through and the prisoners built a huge wall for
the bullets. The whole camp was assembled. I just want to mention that the com-
mander delivered a talk before the shooting. His microphone was standing about
there. I can clearly remember one sentence, when he said: "The prisoner August
Dickmann does not regard himself a citizen of the German Reich, but rather a citizen
 14
of the Kingdom of God." Suddenly a member of the SS came from between the
barracks with August Dickmann and led him to the wall.
DICKMANN: August was standing at the front and we three hundred, about three
hundred brothers, were standing, at the most, eight or ten paces away from him.
REHWALD: He had to stand with his face to the wall. And there were seven mem-
bers of the SS. An officer with the rank of Sturbannfaihrer, that is with four stars,
gave the order to shoot. When the shots were fired, he fell straight to the ground and
the SS officer drew his pistol and gave him the coup de grace, as was the custom.
DICKMANN: August was lying there and the commander comes, “Okay”, he says,
“Whomever signs can go home immediately and whoever does not sign will soon be
lying next to him.” Two brothers suddenly stepped forward, “No”, they said, “we do
not want to sign, we already signed, now we want to withdraw our signatures”. Then
I had to go to Foursquare. “So”, he says, “what have you learned?” I said “I am And I
remain one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” “You’ll be the next one to be shot.” he says.
Well, five months later he was dead and I am still alive.
NARRATOR: Pressure was also put on female Witness prisioners to support the war
effort. A large number of Witness women worked in a sewing room in Ravensbrück.
On day during the sever winter of 1939 four hundred Witnesses were confronted
with a choice.
LUDOLPH: We went outside and the commander came, held up his hand and said,
“Whoever will not sew these bags for our soldiers step aside.” He had hardly finished
speaking when the whole column stepped aside.
NARRATOR: The punishment? Five days standing in the cold without moving. At
night the four hundred slept on the frigid floor of the punishment block . At the end of
the fifth day they were locked up and put on starvation rations.
LUDOLPH: Yes, we sang though it all. We quoted Bible texts to each other until we
grew so weak we just laid on the floor, no straw no blankets. And then Himmler
came to take a look at his victims. “You are having a bad time but we are fine. Can’t
you see it that your God has abandoned you. We could do whatever we want to.”
Then we answered him , “The God who we are serving can save us and even if he
doesn’t we will still not serve you.” Then the door was closed and he personally in-
troduced beating as a punishment.
NARRATOR: Waltraud Kusserow was taken to a factory near the Oberrams camp.
She was shown a huge drawing board for designing bombs.
KUSSEROW: I said, “No, I can draw flowers and landscapes but nothing of this
sort.” I went on to explain to them that two of my brothers had been executed be-
cause they refused to take up arms, and now I should make these arms? No, I can-
not do that.
NARRATOR: At Wewelsburg the solidarity of the Witnesses made the difference for
26 of them who were doomed to death by hard labor. The 26 had refused military
service. The SS wanted them dead.

BREBECK: They were beaten and driven by the Kapos, as well as by SS personnel
who were sent there, and by other prisoners who allowed themselves to be used for
that purpose. During the work some collapsed under the load of heavy stones, only
 15
to be forced to get back up again. If you were to relate this martyrdom in detail you
could fill volumes.
NARRATOR: The weakest of the 26 now became the sole target.
HOLLWEG: He had to push a wheelbarrow full of stones, very heavy, in a circle
around the courtyard until he collapsed.
NARRATOR: The other prisoners were made to pour water over him till he revived.
Then the ordeal was repeated. After the third time, the prisoner did not get up. The
commander, assuming he was near death, kicked him up against the barracks wall.
HOLLWEG: As soon as the lights went out during the night, we were able to pull him
by his legs out of sight of the guards, rubbed him until he was warm, and gave him
something to eat. The next morning he was standing in line again. Not one of them
died.
BREBECK: Jehovah’s Witnesses earned the high esteem of other inmates by their
unconditional steadfastness towards their principles and convictions.
NARRATOR: Protestant church leader Martin Niemoller, once a prisoner himself,
paid tribute to the Witnesses in a sermon:
NARRATOR #2: "The Bibelforscher by the hundreds and thousands have gone into
concentration camps and died because they refused to serve in war and declined to
fire on human beings."
GARBE: From 1939 to 1941 the SS raged against Jehovah’s Witnesses with unim-
aginable cruelty. They employed every form of torture and torment against them so
as to break Jehovah’s Witnesses.
LIEBSTER: Often during the winter of 1940-1941 they were put soaking wet out in
the cold at ten to fifteen degrees below freezing.
GARBE: Many Jehovah’s Witnesses in concentration camps did not survive this
misery. To take just one example of this, within a six month period in 1939 – 1940 in
the Sachsenhausen concentration camp every third Bible Student inmate, every third
Jehovah’s Witness, lost his life.
NARRATOR: Another SS torture method was the hanging stake. Gertrud’s husband
Martin had experienced it and described it to her.
POETZINGER: His hands were tied behind his back and the person stood on a plat-
form until he was fastened backwards onto the stake, and then the platform was tak-
en away so that the whole body fell forward, hands folded behind the back and that
for a whole hour. If the prisoner didn’t cry out the guard had his fun by making him
swing. He pushed him to make his body swing.
REHWALD: Since we slept directly next to here, in the so called isolation ward,
where we were a penal colony, I heard persons whimpering who had been hanged. I
would like to imitate what I heard. That is roughly what it sounded like, it was awful.
NARRATOR: Outside the camps Witnesses were put under intense pressure to be-
tray their fellow believers. At age seventeen Hermine Schmidt was threatened by a
judge with a gun. She would not back down.
SCHMIDT: And this magistrate said to me, “You cannot refuse to testify here with
me.” And then he screamed at me as loud as he could and said, “We are at total
war. Do you know what that means? Are you going to continue to refuse to testify
about your brothers?” He took the revolver, released the safety catch in front of my
 16
eyes, put up his hand, and said, “Are you willing to lose your life for your faith?” I
looked at my father and then at the other brothers behind. “Auf Wiedersehen. Fare-
well. If it has to be. Yes.”
LOHR: Throughout all the interrogations they wanted to know the names of those
whom we had dealings with, who accepted our literature and our main addresses.
But I refused. It was all dreadfully nerve-wracking and it led to my having a nervous
breakdown.
NARRATOR: With the nation at war the death sentence became official Nazi policy
in military courts.
JOHN: What became especially dangerous for them was that they refused military
service. Because after the war began in 1939 that meant they could be condemned
to death. Based on the article of faith that Jehovah’s Witnesses want to obey God
more than men they follow the command of neutrality.
WOHLFAHRT: My father was executed in 1939 after he had been called up for mili-
tary service and explained his standpoint on December 7th, 1939. Later in March
1942 my brother, he was twenty-one years old, also was executed for refusing mili-
tary service.
NARRATOR: At Brandenburg prison, the lives of 2,743 men were cut short. Passing
through a metal door, they came face-to-face with a guillotine's blade or a hanging
hook.
GORLITZ: There were 32 Jehovah's Witnesses among these. The names of all 32
Jehovah's Witnesses who were executed are known. I'll name just one, for instance,
Wolfgang Kusserow. Wolfgang Kusserow, a young man who stuck resolutely to his
convictions and did not give in. He met his death here fearlessly, in the absolute
conviction of having behaved properly in this life.
NARRATOR: A prison guard told Josef Niklasch that there was something different
about the way Witnesses faced death.
NIKLASCH: Well, other prisoners resist, some even screamed, we could hear them
screaming but that your people go the gallows talking about God’s Kingdom up to
their last moments.
NARRATOR: Horst Schmidt was among more than 250 Jehovah's Witnesses sen-
tenced to death. He was sitting in a death cell at Brandenburg with two other men,
awaiting execution.
HORST SCHMIDT: We heard a very loud clattering noise, the clattering of keys, and
doors were opened and slammed shut.
NARRATOR: The guard opened their cell door. He called the first man out.
HORST SCHMIDT: Then the guard looked at his list once more and read out the
name of the other, and said again: "Step outside!" Well, you think, of course, "It's my
turn now!" And he looked at his list, and then he looked at me, and then the door
closed. Then, of course, you just collapse, that's obvious.
NARRATOR: Horst Schmidt escaped the guillotine. His foster-mother, Emmy
Zehden, did not. She was imprisoned in Berlin-Plotzensee for concealing Horst and
two other conscientious objectors. On June 9, 1944, she was beheaded. A street just
outside the prison has been named in her honor.
 17
Part VII - Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm
NARRATOR: The tide of the war had turned. The fall of the Third Reich was within
sight. The sounds of distant artillery fire raised hopes among the prisoners that free-
dom was near. But with the Nazi front on the verge of collapse, the SS tried to empty
the camps and forced the prisoners to march west and south. Joseph Schoen was
on the death march to Dachau.
SCHOEN: They are with the rifles hitting the doors, "Step out! Step out!" and it was
the beginning of the death march. And they said to us, "None of you will be turned
over to the enemies!" That means they will finish us off before. Everyone who grew
weak was shot.
NARRATOR: A stone commemorates the site of another death march along with
thousands of others. 220 Witnesses were forced out of Sachsenhausen.
SCHOEN: This was not the only death march, there were several others and Arthur
Winkler was on a death march too and he would have not made it so he would have
been shot. The brothers found on a farm an old wheelbarrow, put him on it, and
that’s how I met them after the war again in Holland.
NARRATOR: A frenzied evacuation was made from the Nonagama camp. The pris-
oners were marched to the Baltic sea where they were put on ships to be sunk.

KOSTANDA: And then we were taken to the ship Tealbach, and finally to the luxury
liner Coppacona. These ships were then bombed by the British. It went up in flames
and I was able to jump into the water, fully clothed and swim to a small boat and
climb into it. Then I and other prisoners paddled this small boat to the shore.
NARRATOR: In late April 1945 a handful of Jehovah’s Witnesses from the Stutthoff
camp, in the eastern part of Germany, together with other prisoners, were forced on-
to a small barge to cross the Baltic Sea.
SCHMIDT: Those ten days at sea were dreadful and some including our matomilen-
ke became deathly ill. She died soon after the liberation. We were more dead than
alive. We weren’t people and didn’t look like them either.
NARRATOR: On May 5th 300 prisoners, 15 of them Witnesses, landed on an island
off the coast of Denmark. Danish Witnesses heard the news and rushed to meet
them.
WEST: When we realized that these were our brothers and sisters, and that we
knew what they had been through in the concentration camps, the treatment they
went thorough, we knew all about these things. But this was the first time that we
met somebody that had been in a concentration camp. You can imagine the impres-
sion.
HANSEN: So after some talking I was finally permitted to go onboard. Yes, I must
say, I was a great shock for me to see them. I shall never forget how these walking
skeletons embraced me out of sheer joy.
SCHMIDT: We were suffering from typhoid, we had lice, they put their arms around
us, it was an unforgettable experience, even for these sisters.
NARRATOR: The liberation of Ravensbrück did not leave the old and the sick be-
hind.
 18
LOHR: In the meantime I recovered enough to go for walks and I discovered an old
carriage in the woods. So I said “Look, I have found something for our old and sick
ones.” I was feeling much better. Well, we put the carriage in good running order and
put the elderly ones on it, we hung a sign on the front – “Jehovah’s Witnesses re-
turning home from Ravensbrück” and off we went.
NARRATOR: The SS at Wewelsburg planned to kill all 42 Witness prisoners before
abandoning the camp. Why? The Witnesses knew where the SS had hidden stolen
art treasures plundered from across Europe. In the frantic final days four execution
attempts failed. At one point fifteen Witnesses were to be shot. Help can from an un-
expected source. Gottlieb Bernhardt, the SS official left in charge had second
thoughts.
BREBECK: According to eye witnesses with whom he discussed his uncertainty as
to what to do he decided not to carry out the order and is thus one of the main per-
sons to whom the remaining group are indebted for their lives. As far as we know
Bernhardt became one of Jehovah’s Witnesses himself after 1945.
NARRATOR: Max and some other prisoners had another narrow escape.
HOLLWEG: We were to be taken thorough the forest which was close by, away from
the front, and then we were to run into machine gun fire from the SS to give the im-
pression that we had run into the front lines of the Americans.
NARRATOR: Suddenly the Allied troops bombarded Wewelsburg. The guards scat-
tered. Max and ten other prisoners ran for cover in the north tower of the castle. Iron-
ically, it was the very place that Himmler envisioned as the center for SS cult wor-
ship.
HOLLWEG: In this shaft we hid ourselves, and the wall, three meters thick, protect-
ed us. We waited until darkness. The SS had disappeared, and we were free!
NARRATOR: Adolph Hitler had often stood as a god before a vast sea of troops in
Nuremberg at the zeppelin meadow. But now it was the Witnesses who assembled
on these very same grounds. And Adolph Hitler was gone.
NIKLASCH: I can only say one thing. We Jehovah’s Witnesses are not heroes. We
cannot say we can take anything that comes. Whenever I pray to Jehovah I didn’t
pray, ‘I want to go home right away, the gates ought to open up.’ Instead of that, my
prayer was always that Jehovah should give me the strength so that I would be able
to endure in every situation that might arise.
SURVIVOR: The unity among the sisters and the brothers, that gave us so much
strength. It was our aim to endure under all circumstances. We never prayed to be
set free. We prayed for strength to endure. Everything else was unimportant. What
mattered was standing up for Jehovah’s name.
NARRATOR: Franz Wohlfahrt expected to be executed like his father and brother
before him. Thinking of his mother, his bride-to-be, and his fellow Witnesses, he
wrote his farewell poem in 1944 while captive in a Nazi camp.
 19

WOHLFAHRT:
In my faith, I will always stand firm,
Though this world may taunt and cry,
In my hope, I will always stand firm,
For a beautiful, better time.
In my love, I will always stand firm,
Though this world repays with hate,
Devoted, I will always stand firm,
Though this world disloyal stays.
From God's Word, flows the might of the strong,
And the weak ones it powerful makes,
In God's grace I will always stand firm,
On my own I could never remain.
With my life, I will even stand firm,
And as I my last breath confer,
You should with that dying gasp hear:
I stand firm, I stand firm, I stand firm.

NARRATOR: These words echo the determination of the thousands of Witness-

es - living and dead - who stood firm against Nazi assault.