‘Oh, That Everyone Had Been Like Them!’

These were the words of a columnist in the Luxembourg newspaper Letzebuerger Journal. Whom was he talking about?

He had been to Poland to attend a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and noted that one group that had suffered greatly there was never mentioned. In his column of February 2, 1995, he identified this group as Jehovah’s Witnesses and wrote: “Neither the most severe detention or concentration camp, nor the threat of perishing miserably in starvation blocks or under the ax or guillotine could make them reject their faith.” He continued: “Even brutal SS guards marveled at the courage with which Jehovah’s Witnesses went to their death.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses did not seek death. But, like the Christians in the first century, thousands of them chose death rather than compromise Christian principles. Such faith marked them as outstandingly different in the dark days of the Third Reich.

The columnist concluded: “Oh, that all people had been like Jehovah’s Witnesses!” If they had, the second world war would never have happened.