This was not what the security forces had expected. Their plan had been to rid Poland of Jehovah’s Witnesses within two years. Angered by their failure, they plotted what they viewed as a final, knockout blow. A new wave of arrests ensued. Four members of the Country Committee, as well as other zealous brothers and sisters, were seized. Plans were made for holding a show trial in Łódź.

During the months before the trial, one of the brothers died, several suffered nervous breakdowns, and another, Zygfryd Adach, was released because of a serious illness he contracted while in prison. After more than two years of preparation, a five-day trial began on March 10, 1955. The result was the handing down of the severest verdicts since the Warsaw trial. Three members of the Country Committee, Jan Lorek, Tadeusz Chodara, and Władysław Szklarzewicz, were sentenced to 12 years in prison each.

However, by 1956 the official attitude toward Jehovah’s Witnesses began to change. In the spring a district overseer from Kraków was released from prison and was told that the authorities were ready to negotiate with the Witnesses. The matter was given consideration, and an official delegation of three brothers was chosen to approach the Office for Religious Affairs.

The three brothers emphasized that they were interested only in getting information, that the only ones authorized to negotiate were the Society’s imprisoned directors. But the Office for Religious Affairs manifested no willingness to deal with convicts. A second meeting also ended without apparent results when the three brothers stressed that as far as the Witnesses were concerned, the imprisoned directors were innocent.

Soon, however, many brothers and sisters, some imprisoned since 1950, were being released. Included were three members of the board of directors and the members of the Country Committee who had been sentenced later.