Nazi Conciliation question...

by AuldSoul 34 Replies latest watchtower scandals

Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Kent
The Watchtower's Explanations about Their Nazi-History As we all know, the Watchtower is not to be trusted. Here are a few examples of that:

1934
*** Yearbook 1934 p.134 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
The greatest and the most oppressive empire on earth is the Anglo-American empire. By that is meant the British Empire, of which the United States of America forms a part. It has been the commercial Jews of the British-American empire that have built up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations. This fact particularly applies to the cities of London and New York, the stronghold of Big Business. This fact is so manifest in America that there is a proverb concerning the city of New York which says: The Jews own it, the Irish Catholics rule it, and the Americans pay the bills.

*** Yearbook 1934 p.135 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
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 nations. Such is exactly our position.
*** Yearbook 1934 Page 136 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
Instead of being against the principles advocated by the government of Germany, we stand squarely for such principles, and point out that Jehovah God through Christ Jesus will bring about the full realization of these principles and will give to the people peace and prosperity and the greatest desire of every honest heart.

*** Yearbook 1934 p.137 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
A careful examination of our books and literature will disclose the fact that the very high ideals held and promulgated by the present national government are set forth in and endorsed and strongly emphasized in our publications and show that Jehovah God will see to it that these high ideals in due time will be attained by all persons who love righteousness...

*** Yearbook 1934 p.138 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
"Let us remind the government and the people of Germany, that it was the League of Nations compact that laid upon the shoulders of the German people the great unjust and unbearable burdens. That the League of Nations compact was not brought forth by the friends of Germany."

1974
*** Yearbook 1974 p.111 ***
Many in attendance were disappointed in the "declaration," since in many points it failed to be as strong as the brothers had hoped. Brother Mütze from Dresden, who had worked closely with Brother Balzereit up until that time, accused him later of having weakened the original text. It was not the first time that Brother Balzereit had watered down the clear and unmistakable language of the Society's publications so as to avoid difficulties with governmental agencies.

A large number of brothers refused to adopt it just for this reason. In fact, a former pilgrim brother by the name of Kipper refused to offer it for adoption and another brother substituted. It could not be rightfully said that the declaration was unanimously adopted, even though Brother Balzereit later notified Brother Rutherford that it had been...

...the declaration had been weakened and many of the brothers could not wholeheartedly agree to its adoption...

1998
*** Awake! July 8, 1998 page 14 ***
According to the account in the 1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, some German Witnesses were disappointed that the language of the "Declaration" was not more explicit in tone. Had the branch office manager, Paul Balzereit, weakened the text of the document? No, for a comparison of the German and the English texts shows that this is not the case. Evidently, an impression to the contrary was based on the subjective observations of some who were not directly involved in the preparation of the "Declaration." Their conclusions may also have been influenced by the fact that Balzereit renounced his faith only two years later.

*** Awake! July 8, 1998 page 12 ***
Some now hold that the 1933 Berlin convention and the "Declaration of Facts" were attempts on the part of prominent Witnesses to show support for the Nazi government and its hatred of the Jews. But their assertions are not true. They are based on misinformation and on misinterpretation of the facts.

*** Awake! July 8, 1998 page 14 ***
[regarding the 1934 statement about no "money contributed to our work by Jews" and "commercial Jews of the British-American empire...exploiting and oppressing the peoples of many nations"]
This statement clearly did not refer to the Jewish people in general, and it is regrettable if it had been misunderstood and has given cause for any offense.
Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Kent
1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, pages 196, 197 The masseur Kersten began to have a strong influence on Himmler, who was always quite sickly. He heard about Jehovah's Witnesses' being cruelly persecuted and one day asked Himmler to give him some of the women to work on his estate in Harzwalde, some seventy kilometers north of Berlin. After hesitation, Himmler agreed, and alter he granted Kersten's additional request, releasing a sister from a concentration camp so that she could work in Kersten's second home, in Sweden. It was first from these sisters that Kersten heard the truth about the conditions in the concentration camps and about the indescribable suffering that had been inflicted especially upon Jehovah's Witnesses for years. He was greatly dismayed, knowing that his massages repeatedly restored this fiend to sufficient health to carry on his murderous business. He, therefore, decided to use his influence to ease at least to some extent the suffering of all these prisoners. It can thus be attributed to his influence that tens of thousands of them, especially toward the end of the war, were not exterminated. Especially for Jehovah's Witnesses his influence proved to be very beneficial. This can be seen from a letter that Himmler wrote to his closest associates, the top SS leaders Pohl and Muller. This letter, stamped 'Secret', included the following passages:

Enclosed is a report about the ten Bible Students that are working on my doctor's farm. I had an opportunity to study the matter of the Earnest Bible Students from all angles. Mrs. Kersten made a very good suggestion. She said that she had never had such good, willing, faithful and obedient personnel as these ten women. These people do much out of love and kindness . . . One of the women once received 5.00 RM as a tip from a guest. She accepted the money since she did not want to cast aspersions upon the home, and gave it to Mrs. Kersten, since it was prohibited to have money in the camp. The women voluntarily did any work required of them. Evenings they knitted, Sundays they were kept busy in some other way. During the summer they did not let the opportunity pass to get up two hours earlier and gather baskets full of mushrooms, even though they were required to work ten, eleven and twelve hours a day. These facts complete my picture of the Bible Students. They are incredibly fanatical, willing people, ready to sacrifice. If we could put their fanaticism into our people, then we would be stronger than we are today. Of course, since they reject the war, their teaching is so detrimental that we cannot permit it lest we do Germany the greatest damage . . .

Nothing is accomplished by punishing them, since they only talk about it afterward with enthusiasm . . . Each punishment serves as a merit for the other world. That is why every true Bible Student will let himself be executed without hesitation . . . Every confinement in the dungeon, every pang of hunger, every period of freezing is a merit, every punishment, every blow is a merit with Jehovah.

Should problems develop in camp in the future involving the Bible Students, then I prohibit the camp commander from pronouncing any punishment. Such cases should be reported to me with a brief description of the circumstances. From now on I plan on doing the opposite and telling the respective individual: You are forbidden to work. You are to be better fed than the others and you do not have to do anything.

For according to the belief of these good-natured lunatics merit ceases then, yes, to the contrary, previous merits will be deducted by Jehovah. Now my suggestion is that all of the Bible Students be put to work -- for example, farm work, which has nothing to do with war and all its madness. One can leave them unguarded if properly assigned; they will not run away. They can be given uncontrolled jobs, they will prove to be the best administrators and workers.

Another use for them as suggested by Mrs. Kersten: We can employ the Bible Students in our 'Lebensbornheime' (homes erected to rear children fostered by SS men to produce a master race), not as nurses, but, rather as cooks, housekeepers, or to do work in the laundry or similar jobs. In cases where we still have men serving as janitors we can use strong women Bible Students. I am convinced that, in most cases, we will have little difficulty with them.

I am also in agreement with suggestions that Bible Students be assigned to large families. Qualified Bible Students who have the necessary ability should be found and reported to me. I will then personally distribute them among large families. In such households they are not to wear prison garb, however, but civilian clothes and their stay should be arranged in a similar way to the free and interned Bible Students in Harzwalde.

In all these cases where prisoners are partially free and have been assigned to such work we want to avoid written records or signatures and make such agreements with just a handshake.

Please send your recommendations for initiating this actions and a report on it.

Heinrich Himmler
AuldSoul

Thanks for the help, gang! I hope I can return the favor soon (as I can now scour old publications, woo-hoo! ).
AuldSoul
Haereticus

From the original Erklärung in German the German and English Year Book left out the following highlighted part (yb page 138):
<138> tained by all persons who love righteousness and who obey the Most High. Instead, therefore, of our literature and our work's being a menace to the principles of the present government we are the strongest supporters of such high ideals. For this reason Satan, the enemy of all men who desire righteousness, has sought to misrepresent our work and prevent us from carrying it on in this land.

For many years our organization has put forth an unselfish and persistent effort to do good to the people. Our American brethren have greatly assisted in the work in Germany, and with money freely contributed, and that at a time when all Germany was in dire distress. Now because it appears that Germany may soon be free from oppression and that the people may be lifted up, Satan, the great enemy, puts forth his endeavours to destroy that benevolent work in this land. We would like to be permitted to stress here that in America, where our books were written, Catholics as well as Jews have joined with one another in insulting the national government in Germany and in the attempt to boycott Germany because of the National Socialist Party’s announced principle.
Omitted statement in German:
“Man möchte uns gestatten, hier darauf aufmerksam zu machen, daß in Amerika, wo unsere Bücher geschrieben wurden, Katholiken als auch Juden sich miteinander verbunden haben in der Beschimpfung der nationalen Regierung in Deutschland und in dem Versuch, Deutschland zu boykottieren wegen der von der nationalsozialistischen Partei verkündigten Grundsätze.”
Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Kent-Norm-Cynicus
Scans of the Songbook used by Jehovah's Witnesses referred to here are available upon [pm] request!
The Jehovah's Witnesses used the Germany's national anthem in Germany! On June 25th 1933, in the Tennishallen at Wilmersdorf, Berlin, the WBTS organized a convention at which they presented a "Declaration of Facts", written by Rutherford himself. This declaration has been exposed as an attempt to suck up to the Nazi-regime in an attempt to regain their confiscated property in Magdeburg (see James Penton, Apocalypse Delayed). Cynicus In 1976 one of the top-brass JWs from the German branch office of the WTBS, Konrad Franke, traveled throughout Germany giving a speech on the history of Jehovah's Witness in the Nazi-period. In it he flagrantly contradicted the story about the convention of 1933 in Wilmersdorf that had been told by the WBTS since 1934. Amongst others, Franke said in his lecture that the Tennishallen were decorated with swastika-flags and that the opening song was a very controversial one, set to the tune of the number one Nazi-hymn, 'Deutschland, Deutschland über alles' (which is incidentally still the German national anthem, albeit with different words). The composition by Haydn was adopted by the German government in 1922 as their national anthem. The Awake! of July 8th, 1998, tries to control the damage in various respects (Norm has written an article about this as well). With regard to the song, nr. 64, "Zion's Herrliche Hoffnung", Awake! states that this song had been in the German WBTS songbooks since 1905 and that it was actually quite fitting that this song was picked for the opening of the convention due to its reference to the hope for Zion. Konrad Franke had told his audiences in 1976, however, that he and most of his fellow convention visitors were totally appalled by it, that they hadn't sung this song for years, and that many of the audience simply couldn't sing this song due to the emotions attached to it. Interestingly enough it has been tried since to verify the claim of the WBTS that song 64 was in the songbooks since 1905 and these attempts have failed so far. In both the editions of 1905 and 1923 there's no song listed with the title of "Zion's herrliche Hoffnung". Only in the edition of 1928, six years after Haydn's composition was adopted as Germany's national anthem, this song appeared in the German songbook. Thanks Cynicus,

Excellent material about the Wilmersdorf convention. There is so much spin in the Watchtower literature about that convention held in 1933. In the Awake! of July 8th, 1998 article they presented two pictures from inside the hall allegedly taken during the convention. These pictures show no Nazi symbols anywhere. Konrad Franke was there himself, so he of course knew what he saw, but as far as I can tell he didn’t say if the Nazi symbols was outside or inside the hall. There are however a plausible explanations. The Nazi youth organization that had used the hall previous to the Witnesses (Bible students) had not been able to remove all their props for the first day of the Witness convention but was able to do so in the evening after the first day, thus no such symbols on the pictures. Another example of the weasel worded ways of the Watchtower Society is how they constantly try to inflate the number of “Bible students” present at that convention. Even the above mentioned Awake! had a stab at this:
quote:
*** g98 7/8 p. 12 Jehovah’s Witnesses—Courageous in the Face of Nazi Peril ***
Therefore, the Magdeburg office arranged a convention to make use of the German citizens’ right of petition. On short notice, Jehovah’s Witnesses from all over Germany were invited to the Wilmersdorfer Tennishallen in Berlin on June 25, 1933. About 5,000 delegates were expected. Despite the hostile atmosphere, more than 7,000 courageously attended.

It is really strange to observe this seemingly uncontrollable urge to lie that the Watchtower Society writers and leaders always display. They simply have to lie, even when it isn’t necessary. In the letter accompanying the “Declaration” which was “adopted” during the convention and sent to Hitler the number present was of course the round figure of 5000.
Here is the opening lines of the letter:

quote:

“Most Honored Mr. Chancellor:

On June 25, 1933, a 5,000-delegate convention of German Bible Students (Jehovah's Witnesses), representing several million Germans who have been friends and followers of this movement for many years, was held in the Sporthalle Wilmersdorf in Berlin.”

The usual Watchtower Society sense of proportions can be seen in this sentence: “representing several million Germans who have been friends and followers of this movement for many years,” What is that supposed to mean? 5000 Bible students “representing several million Germans”? No wonder Hitler and his underlings was less then impressed by such complete nonsense. I have no empirical data on this but other sources present at the convention has estimated that the number present was closer to 3000 than anything else. One thing is quite certain though, knowing the Watchtower way with numbers, we can be pretty sure that the 5000 figure given in the Hitler letter was pretty substantially inflated already. In the fifties the 5000 figure was already pumped up to 7000 and that’s usually the number they have stuck to. In all probability that’s 5000 too many.

Norm
Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Norm
Ghost Witnesses in Nazi Concentration Camps? The Watchtower Society loves the god of numbers. Particularly if he can be used to inflate the number of casualties during the Nazi years in Germany. Investigating the Watchtower literature is quite revealing when it comes to documenting the many contradictions about what really happened during those years.

Norman Hovland

"A total of 6,019 had been arrested, several two, three or even more times, so that, all together, 8,917 arrests were registered. All together they had been sentenced to serve 13,924 years and two months in prison, two and a quarter times as long as the period since Adam's creation. A total of 2,000 brothers and sisters had been put into concentration camps, where they had spent 8,078 years and six months, an average of four years. A total of 635 had died in prison, 253 had been sentenced to death and 203 of these had actually been executed. What a record of integrity!" (1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, p. 212)
As we can see here the Watchtower Society know exactly how many Jehovah's Witnesses were arrested in Germany during the Nazi years. It was 6,019 persons. The Nazis were known for their meticulous registering and keeping records of every conceivable thing, so of course they didn't throw anybody in prison or in a concentration camp without arresting him/her first.

Another very interesting piece of information is also found in the above quoted yearbook. We are told the TOTAL number of Witnesses that was put into concentration camps during the Nazi years. The number was 2,000! That means that the majority of those arrested were released. But when we look closer at what various Watchtowers have to say about the number of Witnesses in the camps, we yet again see this attempt to inflate the numbers and this time really out of all proportions.

"Hitler failed to break them in prisons and concentration camps where he tortured 10,000 of them, and the Communists are failing to do it in their frightful prisons and slave-labor camps." (The Watchtower, June 1, 1960, p. 327)

"Hitler, a Roman Catholic, the arm of his church in Germany, forbade Jehovah's witnesses to preach the kingdom of God, and these modern-day Christians had to say to Hitler's Gestapo police: 'Whether it is righteous in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, judge for yourselves.' They kept preaching even though 10,000 of them were put in concentration camps and over 4,000 died there. The rest nearly starved to death. The war's end aided their survival." (The Watchtower, January 1, 1964, p. 13)

The question here is, if only 2,000 Witnesses were put into the camps, why print that there were 10,000 of them there? Where did the 8,000 additional persons come from? Did they perhaps come from the same place as the 4,000 Witnesses that is reported to have died in the camps? How can 4,000 people out of a total of 2,000 die? As we can see from the correct numbers of casualties reported by the 74 Yearbook, the real number of deaths is reported to be "a total of 635".

Many of these tragic deaths could probably have been avoided if it wasn't for the totally insane orders from the Watchtower president at the time, J. F. Rutherford, who sent them out distributing Watchtower literature knowing well that this would inflame the Nazis. Isn't the tragedy of 6,019 arrests and the death of 635 Witnesses during the Nazi era quite enough for the Watchtower Society? Why do they have to inflate these numbers all the time?

Knowing full well the real number of Witnesses arrested suffering and dying during the Nazi years the Watchtower Society never seem to be satisfied with it. The attempt to inflate these figures seems to have no end. Take a look at a more recent example of this here:

"Why were Jehovah's Witnesses so well acquainted with the concentration camps? When World War II started in 1939, there were already 6,000 Witnesses confined in camps and prisons. German historian Detlef Garbe estimates that the Witnesses constituted at that time between 5 and 10 percent of the total camp population! At a seminar on the Witnesses and the Holocaust, Garbe stated: "Of the 25,000 persons who admitted to being Jehovah's Witnesses at the beginning of the Third Reich, about 10,000 were imprisoned for any length of time. Of these, over 2,000 were admitted to concentration camps. This means that the Jehovah's Witnesses were, with the exception of the Jews, the worst persecuted by the SS of all the religious based groups."" (Awake!, August 22, 1995, p. 10)

As we can see here, they use the old trick of quoting a historian which have lifted many of his figures out of the inflated figures in their own literature. First they use Garbe's ignorance about the difference between a Witness and a person that attends the memorial. There was about 24,000+ people which attended the memorial in 1932/33. Any Jehovah's Witness knows that people who attend the memorial is far from "admitted to being a Jehovah's Witness". We also understand that with a total of 6,019 Witnesses arrested there couldn't possibly be 10,000 imprisoned at any given time, this is pure hogwash! Just another figure lifted out of their own distorted literature.

As we can see from the previous quotes the alleged 10,000 Witnesses was supposed to have been in prison and camps, then in camps, and then suddenly all the 10,000 were "imprisoned". And for 2,000 of those it was the camps.

One constantly wonder, is there absolutely do decency in Brooklyn? Why do they have to lie about this tragedy all the time? Why isn't 2,000 people suffering in the camps and 635 dead enough for the Watchtower Society?

Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Sebastian

Not political they say? Neutral from governments and the activities of the world they say? How many times do you see words with "political references" in the documents listed below? Not to mention, that these "Memorial Day" and "Living History Projects" and celebrations would be considered as being "part of the world" in literature published by the Watchtower Society themselves! Oh! and by the way, ANCA stands for: Armenian National Committee of America, which is one of the [largest] grass-root [political] organizations in the world! Does the Watchtower's Public Affairs Office see any problem with listing their name with this political organization as a Holocaust Organizer? Not at all! http://www.anca.org/action_alerts/actionalerts.php?aaid=16

HELP ENGLAND'S ARMENIAN COMMUNITY STOP THE EXCLUSION OF THE GENOCIDE FROM HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

An action alert circulated by the Committee for the Recognition of the Armenian Genocide [email protected] London, England (12/13/2000)

Current Status

England's Armenian community needs your help.

January 27th has been set aside by the British government as Britain's first Holocaust Memorial Day.

The official purpose of this commemoration is to "promote education and research about the Holocaust and other genocide... to make sure that the lessons of such events are fully learnt."

As a matter of policy, however, our Government has chosen to exclude any mention of the 1.5 million men, women and children killed in the Armenian Genocide.

The reasons cited by the British Government for not including the Armenian Genocide were that its mention would somehow detract from the "contemporary relevance" of the commemoration and risk diluting its message by including "too much history."

Last Updated: 1/30/01

What You Can Do

Contact the Holocaust Memorial Day organizers, members of the Steering Committee, and others involved in the planning of this commemoration.

A sample letter that you can "cut and paste" is provided below, though it would be more appropriate and have more impact if you write your own letter. If you prefer to communicate by telephone, a sample phone script is provided.

(Send a note to [email protected] to tell us what actions you have taken and to inform us of any responses that you
have received.)

List of Organizations to Contact

1) The official website for UK's Holocaust Memorial Day is: www.holocaustmemorialday.gov.uk

Please visit this site and send a letter to the organizers of this commemoration.

2) Contact the official government departments involved in this issue:

-- Race Equality Unit
Home Office,
50 Queen Anne's Gate
London SW1H 9AT
[email protected]

-- Department for Education and Employment
Sanctuary Buildings
Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3BT
www.dfee.gov.uk

-- Department for Culture, Media and Sport
2-4 Cockspur St
London SW1Y 5DH
www.heritage.gov.uk

-- Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Post-Holocaust Issues
King Charles St
London SW1A 2AH

-- Inner Cities Religious Council (ICRC)
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
4/K10 Eland House
Bressenden Place
London SW1E 5DU
Tel: (020) 7944 3704
Fax: (020) 7944 3709
Email: [email protected]
www.detr.gov.uk

2) Contact the following non-governmental organizations involved
in this issue:

-- Aegis Genocide Prevention Initiative
The Aegis Trust
PO Box 2002
Newark, Notts. NG22 9ZG
Tel: 01623 836978
Fax: 01623 862950
Email: [email protected]
www.aegistrust.org

-- Amnesty International
99-119 Rosebery Avenue
London, EC1R 4RE
Tel: 020 7814 6200
Fax: 020 7833 1510
Email: [email protected]
www.amnesty.org.uk

-- Anne Frank Educational Trust UK
PO Box 11880, London N6 4LN
Tel: 020 8340 9077
Fax: 020 8340 9088
Email: [email protected]
www.afet.org.uk

-- Beth Shalom Holocaust Centre
Laxton, Newark Notts, NG22 0PA
Tel: 01623 836627
Fax: 01623 836647
Email: [email protected]
www.bethshalom.com

-- Board of Deputies of British Jews - Education Department
Education Officer
Commonwealth House
1-19 New Oxford Street
London, WC1A 1NU
Tel: 020 7543 5400
Fax: 020 7543 0010
www.bod.org.uk

-- The Commission for Racial Equality
Elliot House, 10-12 Allington Street
London, SW1E 5EH
Tel: 020 7828 7022
Fax: 020 7630 7605
Email: [email protected]
www.cre.gov.uk

-- The Council of Christians and Jews
5th Floor, 87 Albert Embankment
London, SE1 7PP
Tel: 020 7388
Fax: 020 7388 3305
Email: [email protected]
www.jcrelations.net/index.htm

-- The Disability Rights Commission
DRC Helpline
Freepost, MID 02164
Stratford-Upon-Avon, CV37 9BR
Tel: 08457 622633
Fax: 08457 622611
Email: [email protected]
www.drc-gb.org

-- Equal Opportunities Commission
Overseas House,
Quay Street, Manchester
Tel: 0161 833 9244

-- The Holocaust Educational Trust
BCM Box 7892, London, WC1N 3XX
Tel: 020 7222 6822
Fax: 020 7233 0161
Email: [email protected]
www.het.org.uk

-- Human Rights Watch
33 Islington High Street
London, N1 9LH
Tel: 020 7713 1995
Fax: 020 7713 1800
www.humanrightswatch.com

-- The Imperial War Museum
Lambeth Road
London, SE1 6HZ
Tel: 020 7416 5313/5444
Fax: 020 7416 5440
Email: [email protected]
www.iwm.org.uk

-- Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library
4 Devonshire Street
London, W1N 2BH
Tel: 020 7636 7247
Fax: 020 7436 6428
Email: [email protected]
www.wienerlibrary.co.uk

-- Inter Faith Network
5-7 Taverstock Place
London WC1H 9SN
Tel. (020) 7388 0008
Fax. (020) 7387 7968
E-mail: [email protected]
www.interfaith.org.uk

-- Jehovah's Witnesses
Public Affairs Office
Watch Tower House
The Ridgeway
London NW7 1RN
Tel: 020 8906 2211
Fax: 020 8371 0051
E-mail: [email protected]
www.disc.co.uk/standfirm/

-- London Jewish Cultural Centre
The Old House, c/o Kings College
Kidderpore Avenue
London, NW3 7SZ
Tel: 020 7431 0345
Fax: 020 7431 0361
Email: [email protected]
www.LJCC.org.uk And who started this project? Was it not more "political" figures of the world? During a parliamentary debate in June 1997, the Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson pledged to inform the public about what happened during the second world war, and the attitudes towards and beliefs about humankind that resulted in the Holocaust. This pledge was a response to various outbreaks of violence of a racist character and with overt Nazi connections, which had attracted a great deal of attention, and to a report revealing that far too many school pupils were not convinced that the Holocaust had ever taken place.

On the Prime Minister's initiative 'Living History', an information project on Holocaust related issues, was launched. Its purpose was to focus efforts on enhancing knowledge and awareness of the Holocaust, to stimulate discussion and thereby to strengthen awareness and recognition of human dignity and democracy.

The information activities forming part of the project mainly fall into four categories: organised public events, information for parents and the general public, school projects, and measures to support university based activities and research.

Published material includes the book Tell ye your children...

Living History has also offered pupils at schools throughout the country an opportunity to see films about Nazism and the Resistance. The screenings attracted over 200,000 pupils. A nine film video package was also distributed to every school. Some 40 seminars for teachers on the theme of the Holocaust and the foundations of society's value systems have also been held.

A Programme for Holocaust Research and Genocide Studies has been set up at Uppsala University. A website concerning the Holocaust, the first of its kind in Swedish, has been designed and installed. Sweden's adult education associations recently carried out a joint project aimed at setting up study circles based on Tell ye your children...

For more information, please inquire at the Living History desk in Folkets Hus.

http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curriculum/Stockholm_International_Forum/Living_History/living_history.html

And are Jehovah's Witnesses involved in this "worldly political" affair also? Oh yes! And they are quite proud of their accomplishments in this venture! http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curriculum/Stockholm_International_Forum/Jehovah_s_Witnesses/jehovah_s_witnesses.html

Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses were among the first to suffer Nazi persecution. About 10,000 of them where directly punished or put in prisons and camps. Some 2,000 died, 360 by execution.

Since these facts are not wellknown, the "Living History" project is providing an opportunity to acquaint the public also with these "forgotten" victims of the Holocaust era.

In line with the basic idea of the "Living History" project, the Witnesses in Sweden share their history with the public by means of video documentaries and a traveling exhibition.

The video Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault is dubbed into Swedish. The Purple Triangles video is subtitled. Both are offered free of charge to schools and educational centers. In Sweden, the Witnesses show these films on request in schools and educational centers and give lectures about this part of Holocaust history.

The traveling exhibition, entitled "The Forgotten Victims of the Holocaust," including the award winning video film Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault, reaches a large audience.

Activities of Jehovah's Witnesses in line with the "Living History" project

Jehovah's Witnesses have produced four sets of a traveling exhibition entitled, "The Forgotten Victims of the Holocaust." Made up by 30 panels displaying hundreds of photographs of victims and survivors, as well as other items, it documents the cruel treatment of Witnesses and others in prisons and camps. Included in the exhibit are a model of a Jehovah's Witness prison uniform with the purple triangle mark and a replica of a guillotine used for decapitation of several Jehovah's Witnesses at the Brandenburg prison. The video documentary Jehovah's Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault is shown in connection with all the exhibitions.

The exhibition was premiered at a preview screening and a Press Conference held in the facilities of the Nordic Museum in Stockholm in January 1998. Since then, it has been shown in more than 130 places all over Sweden -- mainly in libraries and educational centers. By January 2000, more than 164,000 guests have seen the exhibition. It is booked until summer 2000.

About 500 trained volunteer workers, equipped with manuals explaining the items on display, serve as exhibition guides and assistants. To provide a historical summary of the experience of Jehovah's Witnesses, 214,000 copies of the August 22, 1995, issue of Awake! dealing with the Holocaust and the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camps have been reprinted.

In order to let the public know about the exhibition, more than three million four-color invitation flyers and thousands of posters have been printed and distributed. Media representatives have attended and covered the subject. Interviews have been conducted with survivors, including some Jehovah's Witnesses now living in Sweden.

Headmasters and teachers in a great number of schools and educational centers have been contacted, and thus many school classes, students, and teachers have visited the exhibition.

On request, Jehovah's Witnesses give lectures in schools and universities based on their history in the context of the Holocaust. Discussions focus on ethics, morals, altruism, tolerance, and what can be learned from the horrors of the Nazi era in order to avoid future acts of genocide. Study guides and material for teachers and lecturers have been produced, and a number of such lessons have been presented in classes in many schools.

The aim of the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses, in line with the "Living History" project, is to present objective historical facts about the experience of the Witnesses as a group, not to inform about their religious beliefs.

So, it seems that Jehovah's Witnesses are proud to "get in line" with all the rest of the political aristocrats, and participate in worldly memorial day and remembrance day commemorations that are taking place.

Lets see what the Watchtower literature says about all of this, shall we?

Watchtower/2002/Feb/1st/page-13 states quote:

In connection with the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Swedish government initiated a nationwide educational campaign about the Holocaust. The project was called Living History. Jehovah’s Witnesses were invited to take part and to share their experiences.

The Witnesses responded by staging an exhibition entitled The Forgotten Victims of the Holocaust. It opened at the Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Strängnäs. Witness Holocaust survivors were on hand to share their experiences with the more than 8,400 visitors who came on the first day! By the end of 1999, the exhibition had appeared in over 100 museums and public libraries throughout Sweden, and some 150,000 people had seen it. Visitors included a number of government officials, who commented favorably on what they saw.

What was the result for Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Society for taking part in this "political" exhibition?

Well, the Watchtower article goes on to tell us:

After the exhibition had been shown in their area, one congregation reported a 30-percent increase in home Bible studies!

Yes, an increase in converts, which also means an increase in "financial" gains for the Watchtower Society!

Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Kent
The Watchtower's Propaganda Machinery Working Hard!
The text of this web page was originally published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a pamphlet titled "JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES".Jehovah's Witnesses endured intense persecution under the Nazi regime. Actions against the religious group and its individual members spanned the Nazi years 1933 to 1945. Unlike Jews and Sinti and Roma "Gypsies"), persecuted and killed by virtue of their birth, Jehovah's Witnesses had the opportunity to escape persecution and personal harm by renouncing their religious beliefs. The courage the vast majority displayed in refusing to do so, in the face of torture, maltreatment in concentration camps, and sometimes execution, won them the respect of many contemporaries.

Founded in the United States in the 1870s, the Jehovah's Witnesses organization sent missionaries to Germany to seek converts in the 1890s. By the early 1930s, only 20,000 (of a total population of 65 million) Germans were Jehovah's Witnesses, usually known at the time as "International Bible Students."

Even before 1933, despite their small numbers, door-to-door preaching and the identification of Jehovah's Witnesses as heretics by the mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches made them few friends. Individual German states and local authorities periodically sought to limit the group's proselytizing activities with charges of illegal peddling. There were also outright bans on Jehovah's Witnesses' religious literature, which included the booklets The Watch Tower and The Golden Age. The courts, by contrast, often ruled in favor of the religious minority. Meanwhile, in the early 1930s, Nazi brownshirted storm troopers, acting outside the law, broke up Bible study meetings and beat up, individual Witnesses.

After the Nazis came to power, persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses intensified . Small as the movement was, it offered, in scholar Christine King's words, a "rival ideology" and "rival center of loyalty" to the Nazi movement. Although honest and as law-abiding as their religious beliefs allowed, Jehovah's Witnesses saw themselves as citizens of Jehovah's Kingdom; they refused to swear allegiance to any worldly government. They were not pacifists, but as soldiers in Jehovah's army, they would not bear arms for any nation.

Jehovah's Witnesses, in Germany as in the United States, had refused to fight in World War I. This stance contributed to hostility against them in a Germany still wounded by defeat in that war and fervently nationalistic, . attempting to reclaim its previous world stature. In Nazi Germany, Jehovah's Witnesses refused to raise their arms in the "Heil, Hitler!" salute; they did not vote in elections; they would not join the army or the German Labor Front '(a Nazi affiliate, which all salaried employees were required to join after 1934).

Jehovah's Witnesses were denounced for their international and American ties, the apparent revolutionary tone of their millennialism (belief in the peaceful 1,000 year heavenly rule over the earth by Christ, preceded by the battle of Armageddon), and their supposed connections to Judaism, including a reliance on parts of the Bible embodying Jewish scripture (the Christian "Old Testament"). Many of these charges were brought against more than 40 other banned religious groups, but none of these were persecuted to the same degree. The crucial difference was, the intensity Witnesses demonstrated in refusing to give ultimate loyalty or obedience to the state.

In April 1933, four months after Hitler became chancellor, Jehovah's Witnesses were banned in Bavaria and by the summer in most of Germany. Twice during 1933, police occupied the Witnesses' offices and their printing site in Magdeburg and confiscated religious literature. Witnesses defied Nazi prohibitions by continuing to meet and distribute their literature often covertly. Copies were made from booklets smuggled in mainly from Switzerland.

Initially, Jehovah's Witnesses attempted to fend off Nazi attacks by issuing a letter to the government in October 1934, explaining their religious beliefs and political neutrality. This declaration failed to convince the Nazi regime of the group's harmlessness. For defying the ban on their activities, many Witnesses were arrested and sent to prisons and concentration camps. They lost their jobs as civil servants or employees in
private industry and their unemployment, social welfare, and pension benefits.

From 1935 onward, Jehovah's Witnesses faced a Nazi campaign of nearly total persecution. On April 1, 1935, the group was banned nationally by law. The same year, Germany reintroduced compulsory military service. For refusing to be drafted or perform war-related work, and continuing to meet, Jehovah's Witnesses were arrested and incarcerated in prisons and concentration camps. In 1935 some 400 Jehovah's Witnesses were imprisoned at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

In 1936 a special unit of the Gestapo (Secret State Police) began compiling a registry of all persons believed to be Jehovah's Witnesses, and agents infiltrated Bible study meetings. By 1939, an estimated 6,000 Witnesses (including those from incorporated Austria and Czechoslovakia) were detained in prisons or camps. Some Witnesses were tortured by police in attempts to make them sign a declaration / renouncing their faith, but few capitulated.

In response to Nazi efforts to destroy them, the worldwide Jehovah's Witness organization became a center of spiritual resistance against the Nazis. An international convention of Witnesses, held in Lucerne, Switzerland, in September 1936, issued a resolution condemning the entire Nazi regime. In this text and other literature brought into Germany, writers broadly indicted the Third Reich. Articles strongly denounced the persecution of German Jews, Nazi "savagery" toward Communists, the remilitarization of Germany, the Nazification of schools and universities, Nazi propaganda, and the regime's assault on mainstream churches.

The children of Jehovah's Witnesses also suffered. In classrooms, teachers ridiculed children who refused to give the "Heil, Hitler!" salute or sing patriotic songs. Classmates shunned and beat up young Witnesses. Principals expelled them from schools. Families were broken up as authorities took children away from their parents and sent them to reform schools, orphanages, or private homes, to be brought up as Nazis.

After 1939 most active Jehovah's Witnesses were incarcerated in prisons or concentration camps. Some had fled Germany. In the camps, all prisoners wore markings of various shapes and colors so that guards and camp officers could identify them by category. Witnesses were marked by purple triangular patches. Even in the camps, they continued to meet, pray, and make converts. In Buchenwald concentration camp, they set up an underground printing press and distributed religious tracts.

Conditions in Nazi camps were generally harsh for all inmates, many of whom died from hunger, disease, exhaustion, exposure to the cold, and brutal treatment. But, as psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim and others have noted, Witnesses were uniquely sustained in the camps by the support they gave each other and by their belief that their suffering was part of their work for God. Individual Witnesses astounded their guards with their refusal to conform to military-type routines like roll call or to roll bandages for soldiers at the front. At the same time, Witnesses were considered unusually trustworthy because they refused to escape from camps or physically resist their guards. For this reason, Witnesses were often used as domestic servants by Nazi camp officers and guards.

According to Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler often used the "fanatical faith" of Jehovah's Witnesses as an example to his own SS troops. In his view, SS men had to have the same "unshakable faith" in the National Socialist ideal and in Adolf Hitler that the Witnesses had in Jehovah. Only when all SS men believed as fanatically in their own philosophy would Adolf Hitler's state be permanently secure.

In the Nazi years, about 10,000 Witnesses were imprisoned in concentration camps, most of them of German nationality. After 1939, small numbers of Witnesses from Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland (some of them refugees from Germany) were arrested and deported to Dachau, Bergqn-Belsen, Buchenwald, Sachsen-hausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, and other concentration camps. An estimated 2,500 to 5,000 Witnesses died in the camps or prisons. More than 200 men were tried by the German War Court and executed for refusing military service.

During the liberation of the camps, Jehovah's Witnesses continued their work, moving among the survivors, making converts.

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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

VISIT THE PERMANENT EXHIBITION
Enemies of the State (4th floor)

Prisoners of the Camps (3rd floor): purple triangular patches; Bible belonging to a Jehovah's Witness who 'died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp

The Victims (2nd and 4th floors): concentration camp uniforms bearing inverted purple triangular patches

In the Camps (3rd floor): wooden box given to a Jehovah's Witness prisoner in Buchenwald concentration camp by a Polish political prisoner

VISIT THE WEXNER LEARNING CENTER (2nd floor)

From the MENU choose TOPIC LIST. From the alphabetical list of topics choose "MOSAIC OF VICTIMS: Victims of Nazi persecution." Touch "Jehovah's Witnesses" to learn more about the persecution of Jehovah's Witnessses during the Holocaust:

From the MENU choose ID CARD. Type in the following numbers to read about the experiences of Jehovah's Witnesses who were persecuted during the Holocaust: 5056; 5222; 3095; 4704; 5474;
5454;'5466; 2775; 2765; 4874; 5213; 4424; 5234; 4123; 3243; 4101; 5374; 1434; 5422; 2454.

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RESEARCH INSTITUTE HOLDINGS

LIBRARY

Ask at the reference desk for a complete listing of holdings on Jehovah's Witnesses.

ARCHIVES

Several thousand pages of personal documents, relating to the Kusserow and Jahndorf families in particular. The material docu-menting Witnesses' imprisonment in various concentration camps includes censored correspondence, arrest orders, records of trials and sentencing of Witnesses to the camps, and photographs.

ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVES

Nearly 100 oral and videotaped interviews with Jehovah's Witness -
survivors, the largest collection of its kind.

PHOTO ARCHIVES

Numerous photographs depicting prewar life and imprisonment.

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RECOMMENDED READING

Friedman, Ina R. The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis (Boston, 990), pp. 47-59.

King, Christine E. "Jehovah's Witnesses under Nazism," in Michael Berenbaum, ed., A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis (New York, 1990), pp. 188-193.

King, Christine E. The Nazi State and the New Religions: Five Case
Studies in Non-Conformity (New York, 1982).

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York. Jehovah's Witnesses: Proclaimers of God's Kingdom (Pennsylvania, 1993).

Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York. 1974 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses (Pennsylvania, 1973).

On Video: Purple Triangles, the story of the Kusserow family. A Starlock Pictures Production for TVS, 1991. English version distri-buted by Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, Inc., 25 Columbia Heights. Brooklyn, NY 11201.

Source
Atlantis

Internal Database (Watchtower Observer)-Norm
The Holocaust and the liars There seem to be no end to the lies and deceit of the Watchtower leaders. They seem to be obsessed with the idea that what happened to Jehovah's Witnesses during the Nazi era in Germany is the sole ticket to being “accepted” as a mainstream normal Church, in Europe and the rest of the world. In their incessant work to present their past history in Germany they spare no effort in panting the glossiest picture of their member’s steadfastness against the Nazi’s.

Norman Hovland

One of the most obvious ways of doing this is the constant inflating of the number of Jehovah's Witnesses dying during the Hitler years. Knowing full well the correct number of casualties they keep on lying:

quote:

*** g01 5/8 pp. 12-13 Could the Holocaust Happen Again? ***
Could the Holocaust Happen Again?
The Holocaust and Jehovah’s Witnesses
In 1933, there were about 25,000 of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany. Thousands of them were among the first people to be thrown into Nazi camps and prisons. They declared their neutrality as Christians toward all kinds of political and military activity. They did not heil Hitler. They refused to accept the Nazi racist ideology and to share in Hitler’s war machine. About 2,000 died, more than 250 of them by execution.

Here are the real numbers:

quote:

*** yb74 212 Germany (Part One) ***
“A total of 6,019 had been arrested, several two, three or even more times, so that, all together, 8,917 arrests were registered. All together they had been sentenced to serve 13,924 years and two months in prison, two and a quarter times as long as the period since Adam’s creation. A total of 2,000 brothers and sisters had been put into concentration camps, where they had spent 8,078 years and six months, an average of four years. A total of 635 had died in prison, 253 had been sentenced to death and 203 of these had actually been executed. What a record of integrity!”

As we can see it wasn’t 2000 dead, it was 635, and 203 was actually executed not 250.

How about the supposed number of Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany in 1933, 25,000?
It is no doubt a padded number. Look at the following quotes:

quote:

*** w71 1/1 16 Have You Entered the Great Contest of Faith? ***
35 In 1932 when the last report was received from Germany and before the ban was placed on Jehovah’s witnesses, there were 14,453 sharing in the Kingdom declaration.
g75 2/22 22 — Yet among the 19,000 German Jehovah’s witnesses in 1933, “a higher proportion (97 per cent) suffered some form of persecution than any of the other churches.”

Notice the number given for 1932, 14,453, an exact number. Then in the next quote it is suddenly a nice round figure of 19,000, a sudden increase of some 4547 people in a year when the Witnesses were banned? But 19,000 weren’t enough, so how do you “cook the books” to inflate the number even more? The Watchtower Society used the old trick, feed some “historian” on the outside of the Watchtower Society some wrong numbers and when they print them just quote the wrong numbers. Then voila, they are not “our numbers” but they are elevated to the work of an “historian” which has done “research”. This is exactly what happened with the number of Witnesses on Germany in 1933, just look at this:

quote:

*** g95 8/22 10 The Evils of Nazism Exposed ***
Why were Jehovah’s Witnesses so well acquainted with the concentration camps? When World War II started in 1939, there were already 6,000 Witnesses confined in camps and prisons. German historian Detlef Garbe estimates that the Witnesses constituted at that time between 5 and 10 percent of the total camp population! At a seminar on the Witnesses and the Holocaust, Garbe stated: “Of the 25,000 persons who admitted to being Jehovah’s Witnesses at the beginning of the Third Reich, about 10,000 were imprisoned for any length of time. Of these, over 2,000 were admitted to concentration camps. This means that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were, with the exception of the Jews, the worst persecuted by the SS of all the religious based groups.”

No one in the Jehovah's Witnesses camp ever bothered to tell Garbe the simple fact that the number of people present at the “celebration of the Lord’s Evening Meal” is far from being Jehovah's Witnesses all of them. The total number of Witnesses being imprisoned was as the above quoted yearbook tells us:

quote:

***yb74 212 Germany (Part One) ***
“A total of 6,019 had been arrested, several two, three or even more times, so that, all together, 8,917 arrests were registered.”

But with the help of this “historian” which they in turn had provided with false numbers the Watchtower Society were able to inflate numbers again and that seem to be of overall importance to them regarding the Nazi years.
Now, did you notice the title of the article quoted above, “Could the Holocaust Happen Again? I wonder why they ask such a question in the year 2001. I mean do the people that write these articles published in the Watchtower literature ever read their own magazines?

Of course the Holocaust will happen again, not only will it happen again, but every Jehovah's Witnesses live for the day it will happen, they pray for it to happen, the next Holocaust can simply not come too soon for them!

quote:

*** w59 6/15 p. 375 Witnesses Persevere Behind the Iron Curtain ***
Oh, this will be a terrible day for mankind! In the holocaust of Armageddon will perish not only Satan but all those who are in league with him—in the first place, of course, the unbelievers, which means you and me, reader! But it will not stop at us. The majority of believers, since their faith is not the true one, are also doomed to mass destruction. The only ones who will be saved, and who will live in felicity on earth forever, will be the members of the religious sect of Jehovah, also known as ‘Witnesses of the Lord Jehovah,’ also known as ‘Students of the Holy Scripture.’ So that is what Armageddon means. Prepare yourselves, and tremble!

*** g71 11/22 p. 4 Awake from Sleep!—Why? How? ***
In these perilous last days of this wicked system of things it is imperative for you to stay awake if you would not be one of the victims trapped in the fire of the coming “great tribulation,” a holocaust far more consuming than that at Saint-Laurent-du-Pont. To help you to do so is one reason why this journal is being published and why it is called Awake!

*** w85 7/1 p. 19 Jehovah’s Goodness in “the Final Part of the Days” ***
3 Yes, world leaders are talking about Armageddon. But do they realize what that Bible word means? Apparently not, for Armageddon is no man-made holocaust. It is God’s universal war by which he and his associate King, Jesus Christ, execute judgment upon wicked nations and wicked men.

If we are to take the Watchtower Society literature serious, this God made holocaust will make Hitler’s Nazi holocaust look like a picnic. So why print such obviously hypocritical articles at all?
Atlantis

CETJAD http://www.facingthelion.com/aboutauthor.htm

Simone Liebster, née Arnold, was born on August 17, 1930, in Alsace, where she spent her childhood years. After surviving the period of Nazi terror described in her book, Simone followed in the footsteps of her father, Adolphe, specializing in fabric design at Mulhouse art school.

In 1952 she graduated from the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead in New York and has since served as a full-time Bible educator in France. She married Max Liebster, a former concentration camp prisoner, in 1956.
In 1989 Simone Liebster became a founding member of the European Association for Jehovah's Witness Former Concentration Camp Inmates (Cercle Européen des Témoins de Jéhovah Anciens Deportés et Internés or CETJAD) and now lectures widely on the Witnesses’ experience during the Nazi regime.
She has spoken about human rights issues before the European Parliament in Strasbourg and the Council of Europe in Brussels. She has lectured about her experiences in over 50 cities in Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.

Nazi Conciliation question...

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