Jehovah's Witnesses and Nazi Germany Bookshelf:
These books are excellent additions to one's library and are particularly useful for research.
Facing The Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe
Facing The Lion is the autobiographical account of a young
girl's faith and courage. In the years immediately preceding World War II,
Simone Arnold is a young girl who delights in life - her doting parents, her
loving aunts and uncles, and her grandparents at their mountain farm in the
Alsace-Lorraine region of France. As Simone grows into her pre-teen years, her
parents turn from the Catholic Church and become devout Jehovah's Witnesses.
Simone, too, embraces the faith. The Nazi's (the "Lion") take over Alsace-Lorraine,
and Simone's schools become Nazi propaganda machines. Simone refuses to accept
the Nazi party as being above God. Her simple acts of defiance lead her to become
persecuted by the school staff and local officials, and ignored by friends.
With her father already taken away to a Nazi concentration camp, Simone is
wrestled away from her mother and sent to a reform school to be "reeducated".
There, Simone learns that her mother has also been put in a camp. Simone remains
in the harsh reform school until the end of the war. She emerges feeling
detached from life, but the faith that sustains her through her ordeals helps
her rebuild her world.
Crucible of Terror: A Story of Survival Through the Nazi
On September 11, 1939, Max Liebster, a young German Jew, learned firsthand what
it meant to be an enemy of the Nazi State. After his arrest, followed by
four months of solitary confinement in a Nazi prison, Liebster plummets headlong
into the nightmare of the camps. Engulfed in terror and anguish, he feels
himself drowning in despair when he suddenly encounters a phenomenon that
restores his hope and dignity. It is a group of prisoners who wear the purple
triangle. They are the Bibelforscher, or Jehovah's Witnesses—persecuted because
of their religious beliefs and their absolute refusal to bend to the Nazi
ideology of hate.
Liebster is fascinated by the failure of the mighty SS to break the spirit of
the purple triangles, despite torture and even executions. As Liebster totters
between death and life, between despair and hope, the purple triangles help him
to carry on. Crucible of Terror recounts in searing detail Max Liebster's
torturous journey through five Nazi concentration camps, including the notorious
Auschwitz. Through the storm of Nazi terror, Liebster, a young German Jew, finds
a haven in an unexpected source—a unique group of prisoners who wear the purple
triangle. It is a drama of survival, but even more, it is a story of hope and
moral courage.
The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case Studies in
Non-Conformity
In this pioneering study, Christine King focuses on five of the more important
sects in Nazi Germany: Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists,
Christian Science, and the New Apostolic Church. With the aid of two principal
kinds of source, police reports and the sectarian press, she seeks to explain
their very different fates. This leads her to two major areas of investigation:
the factors influencing Nazi policy towards religious bodies; and the varying
survival strategies adopted by the sects themselves.
Persecution and Resistance
of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Regime: 1933-1945
"We must be grateful for this book, deeply grateful. In essay after essay we
read of the fate of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi concentration camps. Some of the
essays tell large stories. The other essays tell small stories of a few
individuals - stories that illuminate the whole. Part of this work addresses the
situation of the Witnesses in Germany... Jews were victimized not because of
what they did, nor because of what they were. They were targeted for destruction
because of what their grandparents were… Alone of all the groups targeted by the
Nazis, the Jehovah's Witnesses were victimized because of what they refused to
do. They would not enlist in the army, undertake air raid drills, stop meeting
or proselytizing. They would not utter the words ‘Heil Hitler.’ Their dissent
was irksome, disciplined and systematic... Jews had no choice. Jehovah's
Witnesses did. As such, they are martyrs in the traditional sense of the term -
those prepared to suffer and even to die for the choice of their faith." —From
the Preface by Michael Berenbaum, Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of
the Holocaust, Richard Stockton College
The Jehovah's Witnesses
And The Nazis - Persecution, Deportation, And Murder 1933-1945
By 1933, when Hitler attained power, the Jehovah's Witnesses, or Bibelforscher
-- an international religious group founded in the late nineteenth century in
the United States -- were 20,000 strong in Germany and completely unaware that
their faith and community would soon be brutally besieged. As pacifists
and citizens of "Jehovah's Kingdom," the Witnesses refused to swear allegiance
to any world government, to contribute in the smallest way to the military, or
to stop their active recruiting of converts. Because of their beliefs and their
uncompromising integrity, Hitler viewed them as ideological foes of the Third
Reich and targeted them for persecution, deportation, and murder. Based on
original archival research and numerous interviews with survivors, The Jehovah's
Witnesses and the Nazis is the first history in English to detail in the words
of the Witnesses the course of their clash with Hitler and his SS. Here are
their riveting stories: the closely knit Kusserow family, broken by arrests and
imprisonment but their faith unvanquished; twelve-year-old Simone Arnold,
alternately ostracized and beaten for refusing to utter the Nazi salute; Franz
Mattischek, guillotined for refusing to deny his beliefs; and many others.
Yet, in the history of the Holocaust, the Witnesses were unique victims of Nazi
terror, the only persecuted group able to obtain their freedom by signing a
declaration renouncing their convictions. Only a handful ever did so. As
pacifists who refused to escape or to actively resist their oppressors, the
Witnesses fulfilled many functions -- including shaving Nazi officers --
entrusted to no other inmate group. The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis
illuminates in brilliant relief a little-known and long-ignored aspect of the
Holocaust, the heartbreaking yet inspiring story of those whose resilience and
courage allowed them to stand firm against the Nazi onslaught. Buy from BarnesandNoble.com »
Death Always Came On Mondays
In his touching and thoughtful autobiography, Horst Schmidt describes his life
as a conscientious objector in Nazi Germany. Because of his beliefs as one of
Jehovah's Witnesses, he refused to join Hitler's forces. Instead, he went
underground with the Gestapo in hot pursuit. While traveling incognito with the
banned publications of his religion he met his future wife, Hermine, in Danzig.
Both were arrested. She was sent to a concentration camp, and he was sentenced
to death by the People’s Court, Nazi Germany’s highest court. The reader also
gains insight into Horst's foster-mother Emmy Zehden's remarkable life. In 1944
Emmy Zehden was executed in Berlin-Plötzensee for hiding her son and other
conscientious objectors. A street leading to the former place of execution has
been named after her and now bears the name "Emmy Zehden Way." The book has been
edited by the historian Dr. Hans Hesse, who has studied Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Germany since 1995. Dr. Hesse has added a fine section about the Nazi
persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in which he points out that after the war,
the new Federal Republic of Germany included the right to conscientious
objection in its Constitution, largely due to the example set by Jehovah’s
Witnesses. " In just a few years, the life of the Schmidts has changed. As
contemporary eyewitnesses, they are invited to relate before large audiences
details of their sufferings during the NS period. ... Having become acquainted
with these two wonderful people only after events with contemporary
eyewitnesses, I am amazed that no one had approached these and other survivors
of concentration camps with request for their reports before now." - Dr. Detlef
Garbe, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.
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Unfettered Joy
In her vivid and captivating autobiography, Hermine Schmidt describes her happy
childhood years in the city of Danzig. Her adolescence is shattered when the
Nazis take over the city and arrest her because of her religious beliefs as one
of Jehovah’s Witnesses. After a harrowing "trial" before a Nazi judge, Hermine
is sent to the Stutthof concentration camp, where she endures and witnesses
unspeakable horrors. "Unfettered Joy" tells the dramatic story of an
almost miraculous rescue. Set adrift on a barge, Hermine and 370 other famished
camp inmates spend terrifying days in mine-laden waters, finally landing at the
small port of Klintholm in Mřn, Denmark, where Danish friends are ready with
care and comfort. During years of persecution and Nazi captivity, Hermine
Schmidt found emotional shelter in her positive outlook and firm faith in God.
Hers is a story of unforgettable optimism. "Hermine's sharing of her life
experiences with us is a precious gift to be treasured both by those who share
her faith and those who stand outside it. … We owe Hermine and her fellow
Witnesses who stood up to Nazism a tremendous debt. From them we learn what is
possible and what is necessary." - Prof. Christine King, Staffordshire
University. "Hermine Schmidt's book reveals that it was written with her
life-blood. … in a double sense she gives testimony: She testifies about the
horrors of the concentration camp, which must be difficult to put into words
(but necessary for the instruction of future generations), and she testifies
about the power of her faith, an unshakeable fundamental confidence in the
Bible's promises and a joy preserved through all the depth of human existence."
- Dr. Detlef Garbe, Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial.
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