Der Tog
The National Jewish Daily
New York
July 2, 1939, pg.5
THE MEMBERS OF THIS RELIGIOUS SECT ARE THE MOST COURAGEOUS FIGHTERS FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN NAZI GERMANY. MANY OF THEM ARE FOUND IN PRISONS BECAUSE THEY ILLEGALLY DISTRIBUTE THE BIBLE, AND BECAUSE THEY DID NOT WANT TO SAY THE “HEIL HITLER” GREETING.
(Former editor of the Danzieger Informator)
As the local press has already reported, the religious sect “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” which is connected with the “International Earnest Bible Students Association,” last Sunday held a mass-meeting in Madison Square Garden, where the leader of the sect, George D. Rutherford, [sic] very vigorously attacked Nazism and anti-Semitism in general, and where bloody fighting broke out.
It will be of special interest to the readers of Yiddish newspapers to learn that despite the fact that Hitlerism has already been raging for more than six years in Hitler-Germany, and in the city of Danzig, under the watchful eyes of the Gestapo, which penetrate even the narrowest circles, the aforementioned religious sect “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” including the outlawed Society of Earnest Bible Students, carries on even today a widespread forbidden movement. Hundreds of the strongly devoted members of the sect, including a large number of women, are found in various prisons; but the movement is nevertheless even more successful and steadily increasing in East Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania.
Only a half year ago the writer of these lines had an unusual opportunity in Danzig to become more familiar with the remarkable idealism and enthusiasm which is increasingly captivating tens and hundreds and thousands of German men and women, mostly simple working people from the city and village, who in fact are carrying out their commission at the risk of their lives. The strong bitterness among the common German people against the present rule of terror, which has robbed the parents of their youth by forcing the latter to join the ranks of the Hitler-Youth organization, and which régime has brought about a condition where the necessities of life are lacking, has created great companies of supporters of the above mentioned religious movement.
From house to house, from home to home, women and men are “illegally” spreading our Bible, and when the Gestapo catches them and arrests them for circulating anti-Hitler literature, then the typical scenes take place before the courts. One simply must see such trials and hear how with such inspiration and enthusiasm these naive and simple people throw the truth in the face of the Hitlerites, “We are not afraid of you, for God is with us. You are reproaching God’s name, and a new deluge will sweep you away,” and they always quote some Scripture texts. The verdicts of the courts, which sentence them to one or more years in prison, are accepted with a smile on their lips.
Of course, the Gestapo in Königsberg, Breslau, Danzig and in other Eastern Prussian cities are very much alarmed because they are unable to stop the illegal smuggling in the German Bible editions, which are coming from Poland over Danzig and are reaching the farthest regions of Hitler-Germany.
Simple housewives go to the markets and distribute among the various community leaders copies of the Bible. No wonder then that the statistics prove that until a recent date more Bibles have been placed in Hitler-Germany than the diametrically opposed book of Hitler, Mein Kampf.
There is another very significant branch of activity of this sect that is worthy of notice, and that is the youth in the schools. It has become a daily phenomenon in the German public schools that numerous pupils refuse to salute the Swastika and to use the greeting “Heil Hitler!,” and all the threats against the children that they will be thrown into prison and their parents into concentration camps, are of no avail. The children proclaim clearly that God alone may be hailed by “Heil!,” and not any man, since such action is blasphemy. Many such school children have been shut up in “reformatories” for criminal youths.
There were numerous cases in Danzig where members of the same religious sect have defended Jews against attacks by Nazis, or when these sincere women of the common people intentionally patronized Jewish stores just when Hitlerites picketed those Jewish shops. Only a half a year ago, when like a plague all kinds of food stores began to post the well-known signs “Juden unerwünscht” (Jews not wanted), the same German women regarded it as a sacred duty to provide their Jewish neighbors or mere acquaintances with food or milk without asking anything in return.
To us Jews, the members of that religious sect (which is Protestant) are true “comrades in suffering,” brethren born to share adversity. When one meets such a man or woman, they are the ones who comfort the Jews. They quote various Bible texts and want to show the Jews that things will get better. In a time of moral depression and total loss of rights, of despair and disillusionment, when one does not know what the morrow will bring, the active work of the widespread religious society of the “International Earnest Bible Students” and “Jehovah’s Witnesses” is evidence that we still have a very great number of friends among the German common people who actually weep over the great destruction which has befallen the German people.
© Arnold-Liebster Foundation 2008