Jehovah’s Witnesses in Concentration Camps

The great extent of the harshness with which the persecutors of the Nazi regime acted against Jehovah’s Witnesses has been related. Many arrested members were sent to concentration camps without any form of trial. Jehovah’s Witnesses were also among the first group of victims to be incarcerated in the ‘first generation of concentration camps’.1Dachau or the women’s concentration camp Moringen for example were already opened in 1933. They formed a separate category of prisoners, who from 19382Between 1935 and 1939 the emblems and markings of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the concentration camps varied. In part the group was accommodated separately from prisoners who belonged to a different ‘category’ (See Milton 1999, p. 25). systematically wore the purple triangle on their clothes. Jehovah’s Witnesses were a closed community through the extraordinarily strong sense of togetherness in the group and their own group code. The concentration camp evolved into a gathering place of people who were persecuted for different reasons. Each group of inmates viewed the other group in their own way.3See Garbe 1999b, p. 16 f; Aigner 2000, p. 1. The effect that the group of Jehovah’s Witnesses had on the other groups, will be clarified with the help of several quotes from fellow inmates who were persecuted on other grounds.

Hans Maršálek, political prisoner and ‘camp secretary’ in Mauthausen, viewed the group of Bible Students as homogeneous:

‘Jehovah’s Witnesses in the concentration camp at Mauthausen were a group of people bound by a shared sense of destiny. They were a modest, industrious, tolerant people that stayed true to their International Bible Students Association and with that, true to their faith. They remained strictly neutral in illegal political discussions in the camp. There was no political cooperation with them, and they refused to take part in actions against the SS. Not one of them would attempt to escape from the camp.’4Maršálek 1995, p. 282.

It should be mentioned that Jehovah’s Witnesses did not take on any prison functions. They refused to join in any actions which could have targeted the SS or fellow prisoners.

 

The former political prisoner Margarete Buber-Neumann lived closely with the Bible Students as Block Senior in the women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück.

‘The Bible Students […] were the only kind of prisoners in Ravensbrück that remained a closed religious community. […] Faith gave the Bible Students enormous strength and during the years in the concentration camp they proved that death did not frighten them and that they could endure indescribable suffering in the name of Jehovah, without weakening. [They] refused every kind of work that promoted the war.’5Buber-Neumann 2002, p. 253 f.

Jehovah’s Witnesses stood firm for the principles they found in the Bible and drew therefrom the strength necessary to withstand the terror of the Nazi regime. It was their courageous faith within the totalitarian system of the concentration camp which made them an object of hatred for the SS, who tried to force them to deny their faith by abusing them.

Their will for self-preservation and above all their sense of community helped them come up with collective survival strategies that enabled them to alleviate the pressures of everyday camp life. They developed, for instance, a network of mutual help in which they shared food parcels.

Occasionally Bible Students helped other groups of prisoners. Ms Buber-Neumann related that when she underwent harsh punishment in ‘the Bunker’ a Jehovah’s Witness who worked in the Zellenbau,6Bunker or punishment block of the women’s concentration camp Ravensbrück. functioned as go-between for her and smuggled food parcels to her cell.

In later years the situation of Jehovah’s Witnesses changed in the concentration camps. In mid-1942 the economic deployment of the prisoners gained in several areas in importance. Jehovah’s Witnesses were sought after workers, because they did their work, in as much as it did not contradict their faith, with diligence and care.7‘The Bible Students, [. . .] in their patient expectation of the world’s end always were faithful and willing workers for the SS, mainly as craftsmen, nurses and labourers’ (Kogon 2001, p. 71). Their being put to work in SS households, after the war resulted for Jehovah’s Witnesses in the unjust reproach of collaboration. Therefore, they could be deployed outside the camp because they would make no attempt to escape, on account of their religious beliefs. They were placed in so-called positions of trust, for instance as household-help for SS officers. This enabled them to make contact with the outside world and made it possible to smuggle Bible literature into the camp. In secret Jehovah’s Witnesses came together for ‘Bible study’ and they managed to hold their religious meetings.8See Garbe 1999b, p. 17. They even conducted baptisms. In compliance with their preaching commission, Bible Students also recruited new members for their religious community in the camps. Margarete Messnarz-Günter, who was employed as a kitchen help in the monastery of St. Lambrecht as part of the Reichsarbeitsdienst,9Reich Labour Service. related how Ella Hempel attempted to evangelise. Ella Hempel worked as a prison cook with Messnarz-Günter at the same stove. It is evident that the commission to spread the ‘truth’ was carried out resolutely even in the concentration camps.

The diligently spread message of the coming ‘kingdom of God’ also repeatedly found response in other concentration camps, so that prisoners of other groups wanted to join the Bible Students and asked the SS for a ‘purple triangle’. More than 3000 Jehovah’s Witnesses all together wore this mark.10See Garbe 1999b, p. 17.

Chapter 2 – Female Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp →