Gestapo files that are available for examination contain a decree issued on June 8, 1940, that reads: “By order of the RSHA [main security office of the German State], Berlin, on June 12, 1940, all members of the I.B.V. as well as all persons working for this movement and all persons known as Bible Students are to be taken into custody. . . . Persons liable for detention include women also. . . . This action by the state police goes into effect in the whole territory of the German state and is to be executed all of a sudden on June 12, 1940. Houses are to be searched at the same time arrests are made, and any material of the movement of the Bible Students is to be seized.”

So quick was this enemy attack that it is impossible to reconstruct the details. But we do know that in one sweep 44 brothers and sisters were arrested, including our courier Hansi Hron.

An article in the official organ of the Nazi regime, Völkischer Beobachter, of March 21, 1941, adds to the picture. There we read:

“Dresden, March 20. The Special Court at Dresden sentenced to death . . . Ludwig Cyranek . . . on grounds of demoralization of military power in coincidence with participation in an association opposed to military service and in violation of the ban of the International Association of Earnest Bible Students . . . Ernst Bojanowski of Berlin was further sentenced for the same offenses, to 12 years penitentiary and to loss of honor for ten years.”