“They Have Tremendous Moral Strength”

AFTER some 40 years of persecution in Czechoslovakia, Jehovah’s Witnesses were able to hold circuit assemblies there. One in Ostrava, in May 1990, was reported on by Jiří Muladi in the newspaper Nová Svoboda (New Freedom). Among other things he wrote:

“About People Completely Human”

“For three days prior to the event, some 90 people got together in the Tatran Hall and cleaned it better than it had been cleaned in 40 years. Even if I get ahead of myself, I have to say this, that the hall was just as clean after the two day [assembly], without any paper or cigarette butts on the floor. By the way, Jehovah’s Witnesses do not smoke.

“The first day of the circuit assembly, there were 1,600 in attendance. . . . They began with a song sung by all. Many composers would be amazed at how beautiful these songs were. . . . Everything is done without fanfare. No introductions of the higher-ups. (Therefore I don’t even know who was the highest rank and imagine nobody cares about it.) No bowing and calling out slogans. Humility, kindness, and fellow feeling.”

[Picture on page 25]

Assembly in the Lucerna Hall, Prague, Czechoslovakia