The 1940 Yearbook gives an example of how a pioneer sister used caution. She wore a black kerchief on her head and another around her shoulders. After she had worked a part of a community, she saw one of the householders coming toward her with two police-soldiers. The sister took refuge in a side street, changed her black kerchiefs for some of another color, and moved quietly on in the direction of the two police-soldiers. These asked her whether she had seen a woman wearing black kerchiefs, to which the sister replied that she had seen one, evidently in a hurry, running in the other direction. The police-soldiers and their spy went running off to catch her while the Witness quietly went home.

A faithful pioneer sister later recalled how the authorities, under pressure from the clergy, had her arrested. For a time she was under police surveillance and was obligated to report to the police twice a month. But as soon as she left the police station, she would mount her bicycle and go into her territory to preach. For her persistence in witnessing, they locked her up​—first for five days, then for ten, fifteen, and thirty days, for forty days twice, then for sixty, for one hundred days twice, and, finally, for eight years. And why? For teaching people the Bible. Like the apostles of Jesus Christ, she obeyed God as ruler rather than men.​—Acts 5:29.

Zealous pioneers in Budapest in 1934/35: (from left to right) Adi and Charlotte Vohs, Julius Riffel, Gertrud Mende, Oskar Hoffmann, Martin Poetzinger