Many JWs did suffer and died under Nazi regime for their faith. There is no debate on it. However, it is crucial to say that some died due own negligence and sheer irresponsibility. For example in May 1942, 3rd highest ranking Nazi official of the Reich, R. Heydrich, was assassinated by Czechoslovak underground resistance at the outskirts of Prague. The retaliation was immediately brutal, thousands of people were executed, and small city of Lidice was leveled and all men slaughtered. Martial law was declared throughout Protectorate and everyone was required to carry identification IDs. An elder from northern Moravia encouraged his congregation to destroy their IDs or not present them to the occupational forces by arguing with Revelation 13:16. During the peak of the Nazi oppression, JWs in that congregation went to the field service without any proof of identification, where they got arrested and executed. Totally unnecessary.
Posts by kaik
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109Did judge Rutherford piss off Hitler
by greenhornet inthe jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
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109
Did judge Rutherford piss off Hitler
by greenhornet inthe jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
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kaik
OrphanCrow, some of the information are available in the Czech or Slovak language; and can be obtained by request in local courts, by DoJ, and at the Institute of Totalitarian studies. The collaboration of JWs under communists is well documented, published, and researched subject in former Czechoslovakia. There are also peer review articles and the material is became rather extensive in the last 25 years. WWII topic is also well covered as Germans were excellent in record-keeping during Protectorate. However, there is a gap of information between the end of WWII and the communist takeover in 1948 and almost no data available to the public.
So, if I have read documents that JWs were investigated by revolutionary tribunal in 1945 residing in chateau of Reichprotector and other document said there were Bible Students from Germany, it is difficult distinguish if they talked about the same people or two chateaus of Reichprotectors of Lina Heydrich or Carola Blazek Frank. Both had own servants and own chateau which were even located in the same city on outskirt of Prague (Panenske Brezany). Czech speakers in 1945 would not use Bible students for local JWs, and publications printed in Prague used Jehovah Witnesses already in 1930's. Therefore, there is a mess what these documents say and without access to original source, it is just a wild guess. Lina was from Germany, but Carola was Sudeten German from northern Bohemian city of Most (Brux in German), which had the largest Germans speaking JW community prior WWII. However, Most was also an enclave of biggest Czech speaking population in Sudetenland and thus Czech speaking JWs would fall under jurisdiction of local courts. Meanwhile Lina's JWs would be immediately expelled to Germany and Czechoslovak courts would not deal with them at all. I have heard about the accusation of JWs compliance with Nazi during Protectorate already under communists, but again without peer material it is hard to say if it was just a hearsay.
Era between 1945 and 1948 in postwar Central Europe was very chaotic, which is also symbolized by mass population transfers. Even widespread postwar massacres are almost undocumented. 20 years ago my friend was looking for her grandmother killed during wild expulsion of Germans from Brno in May of 1945. While thousands of people were interred and executed, she was unable to find any information at all. It seems like all records were destroyed. 65-70 years later, all the witnesses are dead. Therefore, it would be interested how the retributive courts dealt with some collaboration accusations. Many of the these peoples courts and revolutionary tribunals were not even official and they deliberately had not left any paper trails. The institute of Totalitarian studies in Prague does not really cover these dark years.
Researching names for collaboration with the communist secret police is interesting. In Czech Republic all these information are available to public by laws, and once you obtain the document ID you can receive copy of the material. I have researched various names of people I knew within KH, my extensive family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. I have find names of elder and his wife with their address and DoB among these documents, and also a person who was not JW but spied for information about them among our local congregation. Any case, if these people collaborated with Stalinist regime in 1949-1953, I am sure people collaborated in WWII.
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In depth research reveals....
by Deltawave insomething i have noticed over the years is how much harder it is to research the history of the watchtower society from its own literature.
people have thrown away old publications in place of the watchtower library.
i beleive soon the watchtower library disk will be discontinued in place of the online library.
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kaik
However, there is a push to preserve a published articles of WT in universities that deal with analysis of religious phenomena. This is already the case in Czech Republic where Charles University already collected large collection of JW literature. There is also a push from WT for JWs to surrender their old literature and hand it over to the KH. Once they masked as a recycling. My mom has bounded WTs for last 40 years and she was several times asked to hand over the collection to local KH. I had advised her to give it to local university, which can digitize it for research. -
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At the RC now
by All for show inat the rc... between parents and grandparents... gag.
the first talk... " we jehovah's witnesses want to assure you, yes, we believe in jesus.
he was the greatest of jehovah's creation".
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kaik
JWs are not Christians in a traditional sense, where Jesus plays a pivotal role for Catholics, Protestants, and Greek Orthodox. JWs even do not pray to him nor consider him redeemer and mediator with the exception for 144K. JWs believe that their savior is FDS and they will sail through Armageddon on the ark of the publishing house.
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109
Did judge Rutherford piss off Hitler
by greenhornet inthe jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
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kaik
The book by Detlef Garbe is Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich.
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109
Did judge Rutherford piss off Hitler
by greenhornet inthe jws at the time in germany where considered part of the aryan race, (since they were not jews).
then things changed for the jws after rutherford mailed a letter to hitler bragging about jehovahs kingdom on earth.. so can we add this to the bloodshed that that the watchtower corp is responsible for?.
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kaik
Orphan Crow is very correct. If I ever get a time, I would love to research archives in Prague related to collaboration of JWs with the Nazi government. During the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, some JWs went head on against German's occupational force and were executed. Some of these people died for their own stupidity to parish as a martyr. In 1942 there was a martial law in Protectorate, which required everyone to have identification. Failure to do so resulted immediate death. Some JWs willingly destroyed their IDs in the peak of the Heydrich's terror and did field service to be caught, arrested, and executed on the spot.
After the war, there were retribution courts dealing with WWII collaboration. Some JWs were brought in to the court to face the accusation to be compliant with Nazi regime. While I am not aware that any of the JWs were condemned by the court, the accusations in postwar Czechoslovakia indeed existed. I heard about them in 1970's/1980's. However, WWII collaboration of JWs there is not well studied, unlike well documented collaboration of JWs under Stalin regimes. If there was collaboration with commies, its is certain there was collaboration with Nazis. I had personally searched some names of JWs in Czechoslovak courts for communist collaboration and I had seen names that I recognized.
Any case, when the WWII ended, many JWs were seen working as servants for Nazi leadership in occupied Czechoslovakia. Lina Heydrich had entire pack of them brought from Germany who lived in idle luxury in chateau outside Prague. I have also encountered information that Carola Blazek Frank, wife of the Bohemian Reichprotector had JWs who were Czech and German origin on her chateau (Czech sources are ambiguous between distinguishing Lina and Carola JW pack, and I could not find definitive proof) . While the German JWs were expelled to Germany, there was an initiation to investigate the conducts of domestic Bohemian JWs who were serving local Nazi leaders. After the war JWs got a free pass in the courts by pointing out that JW and Bible Students were prosecuted by the Nazi Regime and thus they were victim instead compliant.
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Witnesses called for a bible study
by umbertoecho inhello all.. i haven't been here for some time to post as mainly i read the comments and such.
yesterday was a really interesting, unnerving experience though.
two sisters had called last week when i had an abscess on my tooth and was sort of sick from it.
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kaik
Majority of JWs do not know Bible. Their theology and faith is derived from publication of WT and they have very little understanding what is written in the Bible. As End-Day cult, their study revolves on several chapters and with it they think they earned reward for survival in Armageddon. If any JWs would study just OT & NT without any WT guides, they would see how defective is their faith and reasoning. However, they are not lead to think independently and in the late 1980's it was at least in my KH forbidden to study Bible on its own and could get someone accused of apostasy. I know people who were DFs on judicial committee on insisting to debate some fishy doctrines using only Bible. These people were kicked out just right there. -
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Strange but Sad!
by John Aquila ini had a couple of elders come visit me about an hour ago.
they wanted to inform me that a brother who was well known throughout the circuit had died.
(i actually knew about it but did not go to the funeral) he was about to hit 90 years old, missed it by a few weeks.
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kaik
I had in KH extremely zealous pioneer who would cover extremely difficult territories. Her husband was just regular dub, but she never missed any meeting. To everyone in the KH she was nice, especially to children. She had a son who was married and had a kid. Later he made another woman pregnant and was DF's for it. She shun him and his two children to the rest of her life. She would never talk and when the kids were calling her granny across the street, she pretended she does not hear/see them. She was very thorough in shunning her son and his two children until she died. She never reconciled. My aunt shunned her son once he DA with JWs. My ex-elder has a gay son, who they do not talk and he is forbidden to talk to them..
JW is not so loving religion. But people accept the membership and they pay it with broken family ties. After so many years of shunning, many people will move on and the damage is not repaired.
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Book Burning and other burning of materials done by JW. Any experiences Please post
by adjusted knowledge inas a very young child i have memories of several book burnings done by jw families.
it wasn't something arranged by the congregation, but elders did participate in it.
it was actually scary for me as a child of only about 8 years old.
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kaik
I never witnessed book burning, but I have heard about it in the 1970's in Czechoslovakia. They were some regular event when JWs would gather to burn things they considered demonic. We had one sister in the congregation who claimed that she had demonic painting and the elders agreed. They decided to burn it in the fireplace with the frame. I also heard that one couple burned gobelin tapestry they considered demonic or was from someone who became apostate. This was all in the late 1970's and early 1980's. -
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Welfare and Witnesses
by adjusted knowledge ini'm ignorant to the social welfare programs outside the us, but listening to others i have to assume in europe it is more generous.
i've not had deep personal conversation with active witnesses for nearly 20 years.
last year i made contact with a family and some elders came to my house.
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kaik
My cousin is an elder and he is on disability from the age 28. He never worked physically, but has plenty of time to milk welfare, free housing while doing all this field work for the least +/-25 years.
Elders in my KH was investigated for welfare fraud couple years ago. He and his wife claimed no income, so they got government housing and allowance. They both are active JWs with field service. However, they had under the table illegal income which was eventually traced by the tax agency and were charged with fraud. The city kicked them out of the public housing and they were also tried to run away to foreigner country. I could ask my mom how many of JWs in her congregation are on welfare and are capable to work.