Posted on 04/25/2013 2:16:56 PM PDT by count-your-change
"Unlike Jews and others targeted by the Nazis, the Witnesses were prisoners of conscience. They could have bought freedom by signing a declaration card that renounced their faith and pledged allegiance to Hitler. Few took the offer. Most stayed, and many died.
Why Hitler bothered to single out such a minor group - and the tenacity with which the Witnesses resisted him - is what makes their story significant, says Michael Berenbaum, director of the Research Institute at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington. "The Jehovah's Witnesses were literally the only martyrs of the Holocaust," Mr. Berenbaum says."
(Excerpt) Read more at centralprint.net ...
But that is not what the author wrote. He specifically said “only martyrs”...
I tend to think there were others such as Seventh Day Adventists that resisted in large enough numbers to be identified as a group.
However, other than JWs, what other sizeable group of people can be pointed to as having had a choice to remain "free" by bowing down and worshiping Hitler, or refusing and being sent to concentrations camps that chose the camps?
Man for a country that is supposed to pride itself on one of its basic tenants, freedom of religion, and this site, considering the principles it also stands for, the vitriol of some posters about other peoples choice of religion is depressing.
As for the use of the word martyr, get over it. I don’t think I have ever read where the Jews, or for that matter the Gypsies, were ever offered a get-out-of-concentration-camp- for-free card.
Educate yourself and look up the word martyr, and for that matter victim.
You are free to beleive whatever you want and I am free to mock you for it.
Freedom does not mean freedom from criticism, unless you are a liberal, then it does.
For Jews it appears to be a racial bias since Hitler tried to remove any Nazis with Jews in their family line back several generations. Something about “racial purity” and rot like that.
Can you cite another sizeable group whose members were given a choice to remain "free" by bowing down and worshiping Hitler, or refuse and be sent to the camps that collectively chose the camps?
I won’t respond further to slander and deliberate misquotes.
Mocked, by a person who does not understand the difference between martyr and victim?
I wish all would read the article before commenting and look at this definition of “martyr” before any knee jerk reactions:
a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty of witnessing to and refusing to renounce a religion
Then they can ask why Berenbaum, a Jew, said what he did.
And actually read the article.
Many of the JW’s were sent off to Stalin's camps too where their story of resistance and faith was repeated.
Read the article 1st?
Is that a New rule on FR before commenting? LOL
I think the paragraph stands on it’s own. No?
The Jews were less martyrs because they were picked on by virtue of an endemic quality? Hoh Boy!
From Fiorello’s Sister: Gemma LaGuardia Gluck’s Story
Edited by Rochelle G. Saidel (Syracuse University Press, 2007), 152 pages.
Reviewed by Paul Kushner:
“Gemma describes both the brutal tortures by the Nazis and the courage and mutual support
of the inmates. She taught English to women from over 40 countries. Her description
of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, known as “Bible Students,” is particularly inspiring. At one
point the Gestapo had declared that any Bible Student who renounced her beliefs would
be given her freedom. Not one of them accepted the offer.”
Gemma was the sister of New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
He refused to use any influence he had to get her released.
Your statement not mine.
Absolutely. None of my comments are directed at you. Rather the author.
It’s difficult to read the article in its fullness for this statements alone.
Members of a cult who will perish in hell for denying the deity of Christ, were willing to go to hell much quicker by not renouncing their cultist loyalty to Satan.
Thus one of Satan’s minions, sent them to be tortured before sending them to hell.
I feel sorry for all who are willing to die, while following a lie that will never gain them salvation.
Sad, truly sad.
Remember...We have ways of making you read 1st.
Patience on the paragraph. I’ll be back directly.
I keep trying to read the article but, I’m on my cell. I’m kinda getting the gist of the article but it’s hard on this tiny screen.
Ill read it on my big screen in a few minutes and get back to you.
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