On January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is celebrated.[i] This is an emblematic date to commemorate the victims of Nazism. Nazi murderous terror was directed against millions of people for reasons of race, nationality, or political ideology. However, it is a lesser known fact that among the victims of the Nazis were thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses who suffered for their Christian faith.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, also known then as Bible Students, were “the only group in the Third Reich that was persecuted solely on the basis of their religious beliefs,” notes Professor Robert Gerwarth.[ii] The Nazi regime branded the Witnesses “enemies of the state,” according to historian Christine King, because of “their public refusal to accept even the slightest element of National Socialism that did not fit with their faith and beliefs.”[iii]
For religious reasons, the Witnesses took a politically neutral stance and refused to salute “Heil Hitler,” engage in racist and violent acts, or join the German army. Furthermore, “in their literature they publicly denounced the evil of the regime, including what was happening to the Jews,” King claimed.[iv]
Witnesses were among the first sent to concentration camps and were assigned a unique identification: the purple triangle. Of the approximately 35,000 Witnesses in Nazi-occupied Europe, more than a third suffered direct persecution. Most were arrested and imprisoned. Hundreds of their children were placed in Nazi homes or reform schools. Some 4,200 Witnesses were sent to Nazi concentration camps. The noted authority Detlef Garbe wrote: “The express intention of the Nazi rulers was to eliminate the Bible Students entirely from German history.”[v] An estimated 1,600 Witnesses died, 370 by execution.[vi]
The failure of Nazi coercion in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses contrasts with the widespread societal conformity to Nazi goals before and during the Holocaust. The nonviolent resistance of ordinary people to racism, extreme nationalism and violence deserves deep reflection on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
More information about Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Holocaust can be found at jw.org.
[i] https://www.ushmm.org/remember/international-holocaust-remembrance-day
[ii] Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich, p. 105.
[iii] Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault (vcf/-E), Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, 1996.
[iv] Responses Outside the Mainstream Catholic and Protestant Traditions (yadvashem.org)accessed on Jan. 3, 2022.
[v] Garbe, Detlef (2008). Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, p. 521. ISBN 978-0-299-20794-6.
[vi] “Number of victims persecuted in National Socialist Germany and in occupied countries,” Central Europe PID fact sheet.
