A peculiar situation has developed in the country. The publishers in many places can call upon people at their homes without being molested by the police, and they appreciate such considerate treatment by the authorities. Government officials occasionally pick up publishers to talk to them kindly about improved relations and more tolerance toward Jehovah’s witnesses. Yet in the course of the year several other publishers were arrested and imprisoned. Among them there are individuals who suffered in Hitler’s concentration camps and under interrogation and in prisons during the harsh Stalin era because of their faith as Christians.

A number of brothers arrested were put on trial for their Christian activity. Their defense attorneys endeavored in court to show the absurdity of such trials. One brother had been given a sentence of four years and six months in prison. Upon his appeal his case was reheard in the superior court. The lawyer told, the court: “Let us stop deceiving ourselves. Jehovah’s witnesses have been in existence for a hundred years now. Can their existence then still be looked upon as a secret thing?” He called to attention their high moral standards and their good influence upon the community and pleaded for the acquittal of the brother. The judge indicated that he would agree, but . . . The sentence was lowered, though, to two years and six months and, because of an amnesty, the brother has to serve only one year and three months.

Another incident demonstrating how many officials personally feel about our work was reported from Warsaw. An attorney of the prosecution saw his friend reading a copy of the local issue of the Watchtower magazine. “What are you reading there? Don’t you know that it is banned?” His friend told him: “What do I care whether it is legal or illegal? The important thing is that it is good material.” The attorney said: “Just keep on reading; read it. I read it too.”

A group of brothers went into the service to preach in a village on a Sunday morning. At the same time a group of trackers of the governmental radio and television service went into that same village to search for sets being operated without having been registered. Somebody informed the police of the brothers’ activity. When they arrived, both groups had already completed their work and were waiting at the bus stop for the next bus. The police happened to start checking the identity of the group of radio workers. After they had checked a number of them and learned the reason why all of them had come into the village, the police terminated their investigation. When they passed by the brothers, one of the policemen remarked to the other, “These are no cats.” “Cat” is a derogatory expression meaning heretic and is commonly used as an abusive word for Jehovah’s witnesses. Thus they were blinded and did not see the people they were looking for.