“Back in Germany we shoot Jehovah’s Witnesses. Do you see that gun?” the Gestapo official asked as he pointed to a rifle in the corner. “I could run you through with the bayonet and not feel any guilt.”

I was only 15 when I faced this threat during the Nazi occupation of my homeland in 1942.

Grilled by the Gestapo

The German occupation began in 1941, and despite the continued threat of punishment, we did not stop our Christian activity. The following year I started to pioneer, getting around on a bicycle. It was not long afterward that I had the brush with the German Gestapo referred to in the introduction. This is what occurred.

On my way home from the ministry one day, I made a visit on two fellow Christians, a mother and daughter. The daughter’s husband opposed our faith and was eager to find out where she obtained her Bible literature. That day I was carrying not only some literature but also reports regarding the ministry of fellow Christians. The husband saw me leaving the house.

“Stop!” he bellowed. I grabbed my bag and ran.

“Stop! Thief!” he yelled. Workers in the field thought that I must have stolen something, so they forced me to halt. The man took me to the police station, where a Gestapo official was present.

At seeing the literature in my bag, the official screamed in German: “Rutherford! Rutherford!” I did not need a translator to figure out what was upsetting him. The name of Joseph F. Rutherford, who had been the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, appeared on the title page of the books published by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The husband then accused me of being his wife’s lover. The police and the Gestapo official could see that this was absurd, since his wife was old enough to be my mother. Then they started questioning me.

They wanted to know who I was and where I came from and, in particular, where I had obtained the books. But I would not tell them. They hit me a few times and made fun of me, after which they locked me in a cellar. I was questioned for the next three days. Then I was taken into the Gestapo official’s office, where he threatened to run me through with his bayonet. For a moment I didn’t know whether he was going to carry out his threat. I bowed my head, and what seemed like a very long silence followed. Then he said abruptly: “You can go.”

As you can see, preaching at that time was a real challenge for us, but so was holding our meetings. We celebrated the annual Memorial of Christ’s death on April 19, 1943, using two rooms of a house in Horyhliady. (Luke 22:19) When we were about to start our meeting, a cry went out that the police were approaching the house. Some of us hid in the garden, but my sister Anna and three other women went into the basement. The police found them there and dragged them out one by one for questioning. They went through hours of rough treatment, and one of them was seriously injured.