Horrors of Camps Exposed

Although the public was largely unaware of the existence of the concentration camps until 1945, detailed descriptions of them appeared often in Watch Tower publications in the 1930’s. In 1937, for example, Consolation told of experiments with poison gas at Dachau. By 1940, Witness publications had named 20 different camps and had reported on their unspeakable conditions.

Why were Jehovah’s Witnesses so well acquainted with the concentration camps? When World War II started in 1939, there were already 6,000 Witnesses confined in camps and prisons. German historian Detlef Garbe estimates that the Witnesses constituted at that time between 5 and 10 percent of the total camp population!

At a seminar on the Witnesses and the Holocaust, Garbe stated: “Of the 25,000 persons who admitted to being Jehovah’s Witnesses at the beginning of the Third Reich, about 10,000 were imprisoned for any length of time. Of these, over 2,000 were admitted to concentration camps. This means that the Jehovah’s Witnesses were, with the exception of the Jews, the worst persecuted by the SS of all the religious based groups.”

In June 1940, Consolation said: “There were 3,500,000 Jews in Poland when Germany began its Blitzkrieg . . . , and if reports which reach the Western world are correct their destruction seems well under way.” In 1943, Consolation noted: “Whole nations like the Greeks, Poles and Serbs are being exterminated systematically.” By 1946, The Golden Age and Consolation had identified 60 different prison and concentration camps.

Nazis Frustrated by Witnesses

Although the Nazis tried to stem the flow of Watch Tower literature, a Berlin official admitted: “It is hard to find the secret places in Germany where the Bible Students’ literature is still being printed; no one carries names or addresses and no one betrays another.”

Despite their frantic efforts, the Gestapo were never able to capture more than half the total number of Witnesses in Germany at any given time. Imagine the frustration of the elaborate Nazi spy system​—it could not round up and silence this tiny army or stop the flow of literature. The literature found its way to the streets and even penetrated the barbed-​wire fences of the concentration camps!

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Witnesses Exposed Existence of Camps

ALTHOUGH Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen were names unknown to most people until after World War II, they were well known to readers of The Golden Age and Consolation. The reports of Jehovah’s Witnesses, smuggled out of the camps at great risk and publicized in Watch Tower literature, exposed the murderous intent of the Third Reich.

In 1933, The Golden Age carried the first of many reports of the existence of concentration camps in Germany. In 1938, Jehovah’s Witnesses published the book Crusade Against Christianity, in French, German, and Polish. It carefully documented the vicious Nazi attacks on the Witnesses and included diagrams of the Sachsenhausen and Esterwegen concentration camps.

Nobel prize winner Dr. Thomas Mann wrote: “I have read your book and its terrible documentation with deepest emotion. I cannot describe the mixed feeling of abhorrence and loathing which has filled my heart while perusing these records of human degradation and abominable cruelty. . . . To keep quiet would serve only the moral indifference of the world . . . You have done your duty in publishing this book and bringing these facts to light.”​—Italics ours.

[Diagrams on page 11]

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These diagrams of concentration camps appeared in Witness publications in 1937