"Jehovah's Witnesses' Untold Story of Resistance to Nazis"

The Christian Science Monitor ^ | 19961-10-6 | Joel P. Engardio,

[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."

[fso301]

Do you think the author might change his point of view if he visited Auschwitz?

Who says he hasn't already? He makes a distinction between "unwilling" and "willing" which some here are unable to grasp.

[Salvation]

http://www.freerepublic.com/~fso301/

hmmmmm.

[fso301]

hmmmmm.

I must be getting slow. You are going to have to help me out a little more with that comment.

[Cronos]

got to give you Jehovah’s Witnesses that point — you did resist the Nazis to the end. Respect...

[Cronos]

well, Salvation, cyc as a Jehovah's Witness has reason to be proud of the fact he posted here that the Jehovah's Witnesses like him, no matter what we think of their non-trinitarian theology, did resist the nazis strongly and for that they should be commended.

Jehovah's witnesses do hold their beliefs as true by using sola scriptura and they held that strong against the Nazis.

[metmom]

I’m a devout Catholic, and I don’t believe good people will go to hell just because they haven’t found Jesus. In fact, given the Church’s outreach to other religions, I don’t believe the Church feels that way either.

*Good* is a relative term.

Compared to God, none is good. God's standard is perfection. The wages of sin is death and all it takes is one.

But the good news is that God offers salvation freely to those who place their trust in Jesus and His atonement, His finished work on the cross. God takes our faith in that and forgives our sins and credits Jesus' righteousness to our account and does not hold our sins against us.

THAT is salvation, a free gift, outside of any church, denomination, or system of works.

John 1:9-13 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

The RIGHT to become the children of God, simply by faith.

[metmom]

"The Jehovah's Witnesses were literally the only martyrs of the Holocaust," Mr. Berenbaum says."

Baloney. Corrie Ten Boom's family immediately comes to mind, along with all the rest of the Dutch resistance.

[metmom]

Like early Christians who would not burn a pinch of incense to the Emperor this group would not compromise and aid the Nazi war machine in any way.

It's a story that should become more widely recognized and told.

I never knew that. They deserve credit for doing that.

[metmom]

But as a percentage of total mainstream Protestants or Catholics in the Third Reich, their numbers were small.

So what?

[fso301]

So what?

Just pointing it out. Had a comparable percentage Germans who identified themselves as mainstream Christian resisted the Nazis as did the JWs, Hitler wouldn't have made Chancellor. Instead, the German people voted in 1933 to de-Christianize the nation.

[aimhigh]

An excellent book on the subject of Nazi persecution of churches is:
THE NAZI PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCHES, 1933-1945,
by J.S. Conway. Amazon link

When the Nazi's invaded towns in other countries, the first people they killed were evangelical pastors. Hitler outlawed the existence of 34 denominations.

[count-your-change]

You might find post 34 interesting. I have this by Gemma but loaned it out to someone. It's an astounding book by it's self.

Many of the JW women were in the camp solely because they refused to aid the German war effort in any way. They could have been freed immediately had they agreed to but refused to gain their freedom by compromise.

[count-your-change]

You didn’t read Berenbaum’s e-mail to me, did you?

[metmom]

Yes, I did, after I had posted post 67.

I responded in the order that I read the thread.

[fso301]

An excellent book on the subject of Nazi persecution of churches is: THE NAZI PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCHES, 1933-1945, by J.S. Conway.

Yes. Conway's book is a good read.

The Black Book of Poland (1942) is also a must read. It is no longer in print so you either have to pay quite a bit for a used copy, or obtain a copy from your public/university library via interlibrary loan.

[ForAmerica]

Like early Christians who would not burn a pinch of incense to the Emperor this group would not compromise and aid the Nazi war machine in any way. It's a story that should become more widely recognized and told.

This is a flat out lie, Rutherford wrote secret letters to Hitler! And they also supported the Nazi's during WWII and the lied about it.

Year Book 1934 Pages 127-140 The present government of Germany has declared emphatically against Big Business oppressors and in opposition to the wrongful religious influence in the political affairs of the nation. Such is exactly our position; and we further state in our literature the reason for the existence of oppressive Big Business and the wrongful political religious influence, because the Holy Scriptures plainly declare that these oppressive [Year Book 1934 Page 136] instruments proceed from the Devil, and that the complete relief therefrom is God's kingdom under Christ. It is therefore impossible for our literature or our work to in any wise be a danger or a menace to the peace and safety of the state.

Also see the The Declaration of Facts - Berlin 1933 and The Declaration of Facts, Trost, October 1943

[count-your-change]

I’ve already made clear that I won’t respond to slanders and hate but it’s worth repeating.

[ForAmerica]

I’ve already made clear that I won’t respond to slanders and hate but it’s worth repeating.

I know the truth hurts but you can look it up in your own 1934 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses pages 129-140. I have a copy and I show every JW that I can find! Check it out for yourself. Other Witnesses don't believe it until I show them the book and they are visibly shaken because they were lied to!

I also show them WT's with the dates of 1874, 1914,1915,1918 and 1925!

[count-your-change]

Thank you. Some further info from the University of Minnesota's Holocaust Center can be found at www.chgs.umn.edu › ... › Artistic Responses › Johannes Steyer.

A portion of what you'll find there:

“After rebuilding the German military machine, Hitler started World War II, and conscientious objectors, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, received severe punishment for their refusal to perform military service. On September 15, 1939 (shortly after World War II began with the German invasion of Poland), August Dickmann, a 29-year-old German Witness and conscientious objector, was executed by firing squad in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Heinrich Himmler personally approved the death sentence, the first public execution of the war, in the hopes that the shooting would intimidate the 400 fellow Witness inmates who were present. Though the SS gave the Witnesses the chance to recant their faith in exchange for their freedom, no Witnesses on that occasion recanted. According to current research, over 270 male Witnesses were executed after receiving a death sentence by military courts.
During that period, female Witnesses also experienced a heightened degree of persecution for abstaining from war-related activities. Many had been arrested, mainly for their religious activities, but some also for not enrolling their children in Nazi youth groups, for helping fugitives or for other reasons. Some women were sent to Nazi prisons, while others went to camps. There they suffered beatings, starvation, and lengthy periods in unheated “dark cells” because they refused to do military-related tasks, such as working in munitions factories, mending military clothing, or even feeding an army horse. During certain periods, male and female Witnesses were denied mail privileges, packages from family, and medical care. Nevertheless, Witnesses were known among inmates for their solidarity, which contributed in large measure to their fairly high survival rate. Some spent more than 10 years in captivity doing slave labor.”

Their outstanding example, though small in actual numbers, is well known by historians but little, if ever, mentioned in public discussions of the Holocaust, they being tossed into the bin of “others” and “Protestants”.

How many of us would take a bullet in the back of the head when freedom was available for agreeing to “go along with the program”?

[ForAmerica]

Jehovah's witnesses do hold their beliefs as true by using sola scriptura

Not true, there is not one scripture that says Jesus is Michael the archangel. They teach many things that is not in the bible. For example: they teach that Jesus was raised from the grave as a spirit. But Jesus said that He would raise His own body from the grave. John 2:19-22. That's very sloppy hermeneutics!