As conditions in Europe deteriorated in 1939, some pioneer ministers of Jehovah’s Witnesses volunteered to serve in other fields. (Compare Matthew 10:23; Acts 8:4.) Three German pioneers were sent from Switzerland to Shanghai, China. A number went to South America. Among those transferred to Brazil were Otto Estelmann, who had been visiting and helping congregations in Czechoslovakia, and Erich Kattner, who had served at the Watch Tower Society’s office in Prague. Their new assignment was not an easy one. They found that in some farm areas, the Witnesses would get up early and preach until 7:00 a.m. and then do further field service late into the evening. Brother Kattner recalls that as he moved from place to place, he often slept in the open, using his literature bag as a pillow.—Compare Matthew 8:20.

Both Brother Estelmann and Brother Kattner had been hounded by the Nazi secret police in Europe. Did their move to Brazil free them from persecution? On the contrary, after just a year, they found themselves under prolonged house arrest and imprisonment at the instigation of officials who were apparently Nazi sympathizers! Opposition from the Catholic clergy was also common, but the Witnesses persisted in their God-given work. They constantly reached out to cities and towns in Brazil where the Kingdom message had not yet been preached.

[Picture on page 459]

N. H. Knorr (left) at São Paulo convention in 1945, with Erich Kattner as interpreter