Nevertheless, with full-scale war in process, in 1934 the Argentina branch sent three of Jehovah’s Witnesses into Paraguay to invite honesthearted ones there to drink freely from “life’s water.” These were Brothers Martonfi, Koros, and Rebacz.

“In October of that year,” wrote Brother Rebacz, “we were ready to leave for the interior. We had two boxes of literature and a suitcase each. We traveled from Asunción to Paraguarí by train and from there, because of a lack of transportation, on foot to our first objective, Carapeguá, some 30 kilometers [20 miles] away. That night we slept on the ground, with the literature at our heads. When we started to witness the next day, the village priest visited the people telling them not to listen to us. Then he and a companion went by horseback to the neighboring village to tell the people there not to listen to us and to throw us out of town, which some of them tried to do.”

With this pressure from the priest, placements of Bible literature were few, and even some of this was returned. From Carapeguá the Witnesses walked from one town or village to the next—to Quiindy, Caapucú, Villa Florida, and San Miguel. To reach San Juan Bautista, they walked all day, kept on walking until midnight, slept in a field, and then continued on their way early the next morning. Arriving in town, they first visited the police to explain what they were doing. These men received the Witnesses with respect. Then the brothers spent a full day in the public ministry.

However, the next morning when Brother Martonfi stepped outside the hut they had rented, a surprise awaited him. He called out to Brother Rebacz, who was still inside: “Today we have something new.” The literature that they had placed the day before had been torn to pieces and spread around their hut. On some of the pieces, insults and filthy expressions had been written, as well as threats that they were not going to leave town alive.

While they were eating breakfast, the police arrived and put them under arrest. What had brought about the change? Brother Rebacz later reported: “When we asked the reason, they showed us a newspaper in which we were accused of being Bolivian spies masquerading as evangelists. The director of the newspaper was the leading priest of the district.”

The Return to Asunción

The two Witnesses were sent to Asunción as prisoners. It was a long trip on foot. As they traveled from one police station to the next, they were always accompanied by an armed guard. Along the road some people called out insults and threw debris at them. But the police treated the brothers respectfully, even saying that the charge of spying was ridiculous. At times the mounted police carried the brothers’ luggage. One even let Brother Martonfi ride his horse, while he walked and listened to what Brother Rebacz was telling him about God’s Kingdom.

In Quiindy, however, when the brothers were turned over to the army, the treatment became harsh. For 14 days they were kept in the guardhouse, ordered to sit on straight wooden chairs, forbidden to lie down or to stand up, insulted, and hit with a horsewhip. Later, in Paraguarí, they were taken to the train station in handcuffs under a guard of 12 soldiers with bayonets. There they were again turned over to the police for the remainder of the trip to Asunción.

The conditions under which they were imprisoned in the capital were also harsh, but they used the Bible that they still had in their possession and gave a witness to the other prisoners. After a week of detention in the capital, they were finally taken to the office of the chief of police. The minister of interior, Colonel Rivarola, was also present. (Later it was learned that when Colonel Rivarola had been apprised of the charges made against our brothers in the newspaper in San Juan Bautista, he dispatched telegrams to the military chiefs to make sure that the brothers were returned to the capital alive.) “Both men expressed regret over what had occurred,” said Brother Rebacz. “They stated that, although this was a Catholic land, there was freedom of religion and that we were authorized to continue preaching from house to house as we had done but that for our own security, we should not leave the capital city.”

When Brother Muñiz in Buenos Aires heard of the experience, he sent instructions for the brothers to return to Argentina until the end of the war. That came the following year.