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Bohumil Müller

During this period, the good news reached a man who later played an important role in the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses in this country. His name was Bohumil Müller. At the end of his earthly course in 1987, he could look back on more than 55 years of faithful service, including about 14 years spent in concentration camps and prisons because he would not compromise his faith.

In 1931, at 16 years of age, Bohumil was learning to be a typesetter. His brother, Karel, was learning bookbinding. Their father, Tomáš Müller, was a leading member of the Unity of Brethren, which took great pride in its old tradition and history. Karel’s boss gave him tickets to see the “Photo-Drama of Creation.” After the first showing, Karel came home excited. He described everything he had seen and heard, and he gave his father two books in German that he had obtained. The following evening he returned home even more excited and brought with him the book Creation in Czech. As he described his impressions, he mentioned that he had turned in his address at the end of the program in order to be invited to further Bible discourses.

About a month later, when the family had just finished their Sunday lunch, the doorbell rang. Bohumil Müller later wrote: “Father went to answer. For a while he conversed with the visitor in the hallway but then returned to the kitchen with a look of surprise on his face. His first words were: ‘Never have I experienced anything like this. Just imagine, a man takes the trouble to visit us on Sunday to invite us to a talk! It is a talk of the Bible Students. We from the Brethren would never do that. We’re too lazy!’” Later the Müllers began to meet regularly with the small group of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

In time, Bohumil dedicated himself to Jehovah, but he did not get baptized until about two years after that. By that time he was already serving as an assistant to the congregation overseer (then called the service director), conducting meetings, and working in the Bethel Home at the Society’s Prague office. The seriousness of Christian baptism was not fully appreciated by all the Witnesses at that time.