Sources

Sources

Scientific and literary publications were principally used in the chapters that describe Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious community and the chapters in which the theories on the origin of traumatization are discussed. In addition to this, written and oral source material is referred to.

Files from archives formed the basis when determining the date of transformation of the St. Lambrecht monastery into an SS estate. These can be found in the former Berlin Document Centre, which manages most staff files of the National Socialist officials, after the takeover by the German Federal Archives. Also involved in this research are the restoration records relating to the Benedictine monastery possessions, which are on view in the Styrian Provincial Archives.

There are hardly any notes available from prosecuting institutions like the Gestapo, the SS or the camp management of the St. Lambrecht concentration camp for women. Notes from the camp management of Ravensbrück about St. Lambrecht are also scarce. Transport lists of the prisoners’ detail of St. Lambrecht no longer exist. However, references to the Bible Students of St. Lambrecht and also to a female guard, appear on several name lists.

Documents in the archive of the Mauthausen Memorial mainly concern the concentration camp for men. Sources on the concentration camp for women are very limited. This is also the case in the archives of the Benedictine monastery at St. Lambrecht.

Much more extensive was the source material in the five historical archives of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the countries where the inmates of the women’s concentration camp at St. Lambrecht originated. 

The largest number of documents about the victims by far, was found in the historical archives of the Watchtower Society in Emmen, the Netherlands. Archivist Meinard Tydeman diligently collected a variety of documents and so managed to bring them to safety. What remains from the five Dutch survivors are: camp identity badges, letters, identity cards and residence statements issued by the occupant powers after liberation. Also present are photographs and handwritten life stories from the former inmates. The archive in Emmen gave me access to video-interviews¹The video interviews were held by Meinard Tydeman and translated into German by Judith Langwieser. of the women concerned.

The documentation material in the historical archives of the Watchtower society in Germany, Belgium and Austria is more than adequate. Only the archive of the religious organization in Warsaw did not have sufficient material to use to complement this work. Other information comes from other archives mentioned in the section ‘Consulted Archives’.

A special place is reserved for the interviews I conducted with the female Witnesses who were still alive at the time. These interviews took place in the Netherlands in October 2002. In these descriptive biographical interviews, a psychoanalytical conversation technique was used. This made it possible for me to form an image of the psychological and physical effects the camp imprisonment had on these women and at the same time they gave me insight into the actual situation in the camp.

Meinard Tydeman simultaneously translated these interviews. The interviews were recorded, and form transcribed source material. 

Interviews with two other contemporaries made it possible to obtain supplementary information on the camp situation in St. Lambrecht. One of the interviews was held with Margarete Messnarz-Günter, who described her memories from the viewpoint of someone who was put to work by the Nazi’s. The second interview I conducted, was with the former head of housekeeping of the SS estate. She told her story from the perspective of those who had put the Bible Students to work.

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