When World War II engulfed Europe, literature shipments from the Netherlands to Indonesia dried up. However, the brothers had seen trouble coming and prudently arranged for a commercial company to print the magazines in Jakarta. The first issue of Consolation (now Awake!) in Indonesian appeared in January 1939, and The Watchtower in Indonesian was released soon afterward. The brothers then bought a small press and began printing the magazines themselves. In 1940, they received a larger flatbed press from Australia with which they printed booklets and magazines in Indonesian and in Dutch, covering the expenses out of their own pockets.

Finally, on July 28, 1941, the authorities banned all of the Watch Tower Society’s publications. Jean Deschamp recalled: “I was typing in the office one morning when the doors flung open and in marched three policemen and a senior Dutch official in full regalia​—medals, white gloves, dress sword, and plumed hat. We were not surprised. Three days earlier we had received inside information that our publications would soon be banned. The pompous official read a lengthy proclamation and then demanded to be taken to the printery to seal our press. But my husband told him that he was too late. The press had been sold the day before!”

The Bible, however, had not been banned. So the brothers kept preaching from house to house, using only the Bible. They also conducted Bible studies. But since the prospect of war loomed in Asia, the foreign pioneers were directed to return to Australia.

In early 1942, the Japanese military juggernaut swept through Indonesia, seizing it with a viselike grip. Many brothers were forced to do hard manual labor​—building roads or clearing ditches. Others were interned in squalid prison camps and tortured for refusing to support the war. At least three brothers died in prison.

One Dutch sister, Johanna Harp, who lived in a remote mountain village in East Java, was able to avoid the camps for the first two years of the war. She and her three teenage children used their freedom to translate the book Salvation and issues of The Watchtower from English into Dutch.a The translated publications were then copied and smuggled to Witnesses throughout Java.

The few Witnesses who still had their freedom met in small groups and preached cautiously. “I was always on the lookout to talk informally about the truth,” said Josephine Elias (formerly Tan). “I carried a chessboard when visiting interested people at their homes so that others would think I was merely playing chess.” Felix Tan and his wife, Bola, preached from door to door, pretending to sell soap. “We were often followed by spies of the Kempeitai, the dreaded Japanese military police,” said Felix. “To avoid suspicion, we visited our Bible students at varying times. Six of our students progressed very well and were baptized during the war.”

Dissent in Jakarta

As the brothers adjusted to the wartime hardships, they soon faced another serious test. The Japanese authorities ordered all foreigners (including Chinese-Indonesians) to register and to carry an identity card bearing an oath of allegiance to the Japanese Empire. Many brothers wondered, ‘Should we register and sign the identity card, or should we refuse?’

Felix Tan explained: “The brothers in Jakarta urged those of us in Sukabumi to refuse to sign the identity card. But we asked the authorities if we could change the wording on the card from ‘the undersigned have sworn allegiance to’ to ‘the undersigned will not impede’ the Japanese army. Surprisingly, they agreed, so we all obtained cards. When the brothers in Jakarta heard about our decision, they called us apostates and cut us off.”

Sadly, most of the hard-liners in Jakarta were arrested and renounced the truth. One brother who refused to compromise ended up in prison with André Elias. “I reasoned with him on the registration issue and helped him to get a more balanced view,” said André. “He humbly asked forgiveness for cutting us off. We then had a grand time building each other up, but tragically, he died because of the harsh prison conditions.”