My brother, Emmanuel Paterakis, received from the same full-time minister the booklet Where Are the Dead?, published by Jehovah’s Witnesses.b

My brother’s enthusiasm for the preaching work was a source of inspiration to me. It was not long before the police began to take an interest in our family, paying us regular visits at all hours of the day and night to search for Emmanuel and for literature. I vividly remember when a priest came to convince us to return to church. When Emmanuel showed him from the Bible that God’s name is Jehovah, the priest grabbed the Bible, waved it menacingly before my brother’s face, and shouted, “This book has destroyed you!”

In 1940 when Emmanuel refused to serve in the army, he was arrested and sent to the Albanian front. We lost contact with him and thought that he was dead. Two years later, however, we unexpectedly received a letter from him sent from prison. He was alive and well! One of the scriptures he cited in that letter has been indelibly fixed in my mind ever since: “As regards Jehovah, his eyes are roving about through all the earth to show his strength in behalf of those whose heart is complete toward him.” (2 Chronicles 16:9) How greatly we needed such encouragement!

From his prison, Emmanuel was able to ask some brothers to visit me.

When Emmanuel was freed from prison, he started visiting congregations in Athens as a traveling overseer. I moved there in 1947.