Posted by:
Nightingale
(
)
Date: April 17, 2024 01:27PM
From the Holocaust Encyclopedia:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-persecution-of-jehovahs-witnessesExcerpts:
"Jehovah's Witnesses were subjected to intense persecution under the Nazi regime. Nazi leaders targeted Jehovah's Witnesses because they were unwilling to accept the authority of the state..."
"Many actions of Jehovah's Witnesses antagonized Nazi authorities. While Witnesses contended that they were apolitical and that their actions were not anti-Nazi, their unwillingness to give the Nazi salute, to join party organizations or to let their children join the Hitler Youth..."
"...their unwillingness to adorn their homes with Nazi flags made them suspect."
"Some Witnesses were tortured in attempts to make them sign declarations renouncing their faith, but few capitulated to this pressure."
"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 120 Dutch persons. (The non-German Jehovah's Witnesses suffered a considerably higher percentage of deaths than their German co-religionists.) In addition, at least 273 Jehovah's Witnesses were sentenced to death by military courts for refusing military service were executed."
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***Disturbing content***
Notice of Gregor Wohlfahrt's execution:
"Authorities in Berlin, Germany, sent this notice to Barbara Wohlfahrt, informing her of her husband Gregor's execution on the morning of December 7, 1939. Although he was physically unfit to serve in the armed forces, the Nazis tried Wohlfahrt for his religious opposition to military service. As a Jehovah's Witness, Wohlfahrt believed that military service violated the biblical commandment not to kill. On November 8, 1939, a military court condemned Wohlfahrt to beheading, a sentence carried out one month later in Ploetzensee prison in Berlin."
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To be clear, many of the JW's choices and positions during the war were not 100% due to objections to Naziism but rather were due to their religious beliefs that forbade many of the beliefs and actions demanded of them by the Nazi regime. IOW, their choices and actions would be the same in any society at any time. The reasons for their "resistance" were entirely due to their pre-existing mandates such as refusal to serve in the military, to salute any country's flag or to engage in politics in any way including not voting in elections.
To me, that fact doesn't negate the individual courage of people who stand up for their beliefs no matter what the consequences may be, even if horrific (such as the man mentioned above who was beheaded).
I highly doubt that I would be so strong. I hope so, if it ever came to something that matters a great deal.