The eldest of six children born to Catholic parents, Franz was raised in a village in the part of Austria known as Carinthia. His father was a farmer and quarryman. Disillusioned with Catholicism, his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses during Franz's childhood and raised their children in their new faith. As a teenager, Franz was interested in painting and skiing.
1933-39: Franz was apprenticed to be a house painter and decorator. After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, like other Jehovah's Witnesses he refused to swear an oath to Hitler or to give the Hitler salute. Neighbors reported him to the police, but his boss protected him from arrest by saying that his work was needed. When the war began in September 1939 Franz's father was arrested for opposing military service. He was executed in December.
1940-44: Following his twentieth birthday, Franz refused to be inducted into the German army. In front of hundreds of recruits and officers he refused to salute the Nazi flag. He was arrested on March 14, 1940, and imprisoned. Later that year, Franz was sent to a penal camp in Germany. A new commander felt sorry for him; three times he saved Franz from execution between 1943 and 1945. He was impressed that Franz was willing to die rather than to break God's command to love his neighbor and not kill.
Franz remained in Camp Rollwald Rodgau 2 until March 24, 1945. He was liberated by U.S. forces and returned to his home in Austria.
Item ViewRobert and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses. The Nazis regarded Jehovah's Witnesses as enemies of the state for their refusal to take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler, or to serve in the German army. Robert's family continued its religious activities despite Nazi persecution. Shortly before Robert's birth, his mother was imprisoned briefly for distributing religious materials. Robert's hip was injured during delivery, leaving him with a disability. When Robert was five years, he was ordered to report for a physical in Schlierheim. His mother overheard staff comments about putting Robert "to sleep." Fearing they intended to kill him, Robert's mother grabbed him and ran from the clinic. Nazi physicians had begun systematic killing of those they deemed physically and mentally disabled in the fall of 1939.
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Gregor was the second of six children born to Catholic parents in a village in the part of Austria known as Carinthia. His father was a farmer and quarryman. Disillusioned with Catholicism, his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses and raised their children according to that religion. As a boy, Gregor loved mountain climbing and skiing.
1933-39: Gregor attended school and worked as a waiter. The situation for Jehovah's Witnesses worsened after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938; Witnesses refused to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler, believing that their sole allegiance was to God and His laws. On September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland, Gregor's father was arrested for opposing military service and executed three months later.
1940-42: Like his older brother, Franz, Gregor refused to be inducted into the German armed forces, following the Witnesses' belief that military service violated God's fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." Gregor was arrested. He was brought in chains before a military court in Berlin and sentenced to death on December 18, 1941. For Gregor, his father's arrest and execution two years earlier on similar charges only strengthened his resolve to stand by his faith.
Gregor was executed by guillotine in Berlin's Ploetzensee Prison on March 14, 1942. He was 20 years old.
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Ernst was an only child born to atheist parents in southern Austria during the middle of World War I. Raised in Austria's second largest city, he loved the outdoors, especially skiing in the Alps. In the early 1930s Ernst became a Jehovah's Witness. Although Austria was then in a deep economic depression, he was fortunate to find a job as a sales clerk in a grocery store.
1933-39: Austria's Catholic government was hostile towards Jehovah's Witnesses. When the Germans annexed Austria in March 1938, their activities were banned. Following God's commandments, Ernst refused to give the Hitler salute and to serve in the German army. He was arrested for this on September 6, 1938, and sentenced to six months imprisonment. When he again refused to serve, he was imprisoned in the Bayreuth penitentiary in Germany.
1940-44: When Ernst's second prison term ended in November 1939, he was transferred to the relatively new Flossenbürg concentration camp. His number was 1935; he was forced to be a stonemason, and subjected to brutal treatment, including attempts to break his faith in God. But Ernst believed God's power was far greater than anything the Nazis could do to him. He felt the Jewish, Polish, and Soviet prisoners had it far worse than he did. The only way the Jewish prisoners got out of there was "through the chimney."
Ernst survived Flossenbürg and a forced march in April 1945. He was liberated by American troops and bicycled back to his home in Austria during the summer of 1945.
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One of 11 children, Magdalena was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. When she was 7, her family moved to the small town of Bad Lippspringe. Her father was a retired postal official and her mother was a teacher. Their home was known as "The Golden Age" because it was the headquarters of the local Jehovah's Witness congregation. By age 8 Magdalena could recite many Bible verses by heart.
1933-39: The Kusserow's loyalty was to Jehovah, so the Nazis marked them as enemies. At 12 Magdalena joined her parents and sister in missionary work. Catholic priests denounced them. Her father was arrested for hosting Bible study meetings in their home; even her mother was arrested. The Gestapo searched their house many times, but Magdalena and her sisters managed to hide the religious literature. In 1939 the police took her three youngest siblings to be "reeducated" in Nazi foster homes.
1940-44: Magdalena was arrested in April 1941 and detained in nearby juvenile prisons until she was 18. She was told that she could go home if she signed a statement repudiating her faith. But Magdalena refused and was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. After a harrowing trip with common criminals and prostitutes, she was assigned to do gardening work and look after the children of the SS women. Within a year, her mother and sister Hildegard were also in Ravensbrueck; with God's help, the Jehovah's Witnesses stuck together.
During a forced march from Ravensbrück in April 1945, Magdalena, her sister and mother were liberated. When the war ended, they returned to Bad Lippspringe.
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Simone was born in the Alsatian village of Husseren-Wesserling. In 1933 when she was three, her parents moved to the nearby city of Mulhouse. There, her father worked in a printing factory. Her parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and instilled in her the teachings of the faith. Above all, she was taught the importance of placing obedience to God before allegiance to any earthly authority.
1933-39: Simone grew up in a home full of love. Her parents would read the Bible to her. Their life included music, art, knitting and good food. She loved her dog and playing outdoors. Her family had a garden near the house and Simone enjoyed hiking and cycling in their beautiful countryside. In 1936 she began public school, studying in both French and German. During those years she learned a lot.
1940-44: The Germans occupied our region in 1940. A year later, Simone was expelled from school for refusing to say "Heil Hitler" and was interrogated by the Gestapo. When she was 12, the courts ordered that she be taken away from her parents--the Nazis claimed she was being corrupted by Jehovah's Witness teachings. In June 1943 she was sent to a children's reeducation center in Constance, Germany. Her aunt was allowed to visit her nine times in two years: she smuggled illegal literature from Mulhouse. Simone's love for Jehovah sustained her.
Simone was liberated by the French army in April 1945. She was reunited with her parents and returned to school in France.
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Helene lived in Herne and Bochum in western Germany, where she was married to a coal miner who was unemployed between 1927 and 1938. Following their disillusionment with the Lutheran Church during World War I, Helene, who was a nurse, and her husband became Jehovah's Witnesses in 1926. Together, they raised their two children according to the teachings of the Scripture.
1933-39: Under the Nazis, Jehovah's Witnesses were persecuted for their missionary work and because they believed their sole allegiance was to God and His Commandments. Some of the Gottholds' neighbors refused to have anything to do with them. Helene's husband was arrested in 1936. After searching her house, the Gestapo arrested her in 1937; she was beaten with rods and lost her unborn baby. The court gave her an 18-month sentence.
1940-44: Helene and her husband were released and the Gotthold family was reunited. Helene and her husband were rearrested in February 1944. They were imprisoned in Essen, but when the prison was destroyed in an Allied bombing raid, they were transferred to a prison in Potsdam. On August 4, the People's Court sentenced Helene and five other Witnesses to death for illegally holding Bible meetings and undermining the nation's morale. Before her execution, Helene was allowed to write a letter to her husband and children.
Helene was executed by guillotine in Berlin's Ploetzensee Prison on December 8, 1944. Her family survived and resumed their Jehovah's Witness missionary work in Germany.
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When Wolfgang was an infant, his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses. His father moved the family to the small Westphalian town of Bad Lippspringe when Wolfgang was 9. Their home became the headquarters of a new Jehovah's Witness congregation. Wolfgang and his ten brothers and sisters grew up studying the Bible daily.
1933-39: The Kusserows were under close scrutiny by the Nazi secret police because of their religion. As a Jehovah's Witness, Wolfgang believed that his highest allegiance was to God and His laws, especially the commandment to "love God above all else and thy neighbor as thyself." Even after the Nazis arrested Wolfgang's father and oldest brother, Wilhelm, the Kusserows continued to host, illegally, Bible study meetings in their home.
1940-42: Believing that God, not Hitler, was his guide, and obeying God's fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," Wolfgang refused induction into the German army. He was arrested in December, 1941, and a bill of indictment was issued on January 12, 1942. After months in prison, Wolfgang was tried and sentenced to death. On the night before his execution, he wrote to his family, assuring them of his devotion to God.
Wolfgang was beheaded by guillotine in Brandenburg Prison on March 28, 1942. He was 20 years old.
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Born at the beginning of World War I, Wilhelm was patriotically named after Germany's emperor, Wilhelm II. The eldest son, Wilhelm was raised a Lutheran, but after the war his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses and raised their children according to their faith. After 1931, their home in the rustic town of Bad Lippspringe became known as a center of Jehovah's Witness activity.
1933-39: The Kusserows were under close scrutiny by the Nazi police because Witnesses believed that their highest loyalty was to God, not to Hitler. The Kusserows' home was repeatedly searched and some of their religious literature was confiscated. They offered refuge to fellow Witnesses and continued to host Bible study meetings in their home, illegally, even after Wilhelm's father had been arrested twice.
1940: Germany had been at war since September 1939 and Wilhelm had been arrested for refusing induction into the German army, adhering strictly to the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." For Wilhelm, God's law came before Hitler's laws. The judge and prosecutor tried to change his mind. They offered to rescind his execution order if he renounced his "evil and destructive" beliefs. Wilhelm refused. The court sentenced him to death.
According to his defense counsel, Wilhelm "died in accordance with his convictions." He was shot by a firing squad in Muenster Prison, on April 27, 1940.
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Willibald was the youngest of six children born to Catholic parents in a village in the part of Austria known as Carinthia. Disillusioned with Catholicism, his father and mother became Jehovah's Witnesses when Willibald was an infant, and they raised their children in their new faith. His father became the leader of the local Jehovah's Witness congregation.
1933-39: Willibald lived in a beautiful area near lakes and mountains. The Wohlfahrts were active in Jehovah's Witness missionary work, even though the Austrian government was opposed to the teachings of the faith. In 1938 the Nazis took over. Willibald's father was arrested on September 1, 1939, for opposing military service; three months later he was executed.
1940-45: Willibald's oldest brother was sent to a concentration camp and his brother Gregor was executed for refusing to join the German military. When Willibald was 14, he and his remaining sisters and brother were taken away by the Germans. Willibald was sent to a Catholic convent in Landau, where a Nazi instructor tried to indoctrinate him. He beat Willibald when he refused to salute Hitler. When Allied armies approached, Willibald was sent to the battle front to dig trenches for the German home defense.
Willibald was killed in 1945 while on the work detail digging trenches in western Germany. He was 17 years old.
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Josef was born to German Catholic parents. They lived in a Moravian village near the city of Sternberk in a German-inhabited region known as the Sudetenland. At that time Czechoslovakia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Upon graduation from a textile school, Josef supervised 600 employees at a silk factory in Moravska Trebova.
1933-39: After serving in the Czechoslovak army, Josef became a Jehovah's Witness in Prague, and refused to have anything more to do with the military, following the Witnesses' strict adherence to the commandment "Thou shalt not kill." In 1938 he was briefly arrested for refusing call-up in the Czechoslovak army. When the Germans took Prague in 1939, he managed to ship out the Witnesses office's printing machines and set them up again in Holland.
1940-44: Josef worked in Vienna for the Jehovah's Witness underground. His job was dangerous--supplying literature to their congregations in Austria. The Gestapo promptly arrested him. The court sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment, but first he was sent to do slave labor in a series of camps in the swamps of northwest Germany. Near the end of the war he again refused military service and was force-marched to various prisons and camps in southern Germany. Hundreds of prisoners died.
Josef was liberated by U.S. troops in May 1945 after surviving a forced march to the Dachau concentration camp. He subsequently immigrated to Canada.
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Berthold was an only child. He was raised in Paderborn, a town in a largely Catholic region of western Germany. Paderborn was near Bad Lippspringe, where there was a Jehovah's Witnesses congregation engaged in missionary work. Beginning in 1933, the Nazis moved to outlaw Jehovah's Witness activities.
1933-39: When Berthold was 4, his parents became Jehovah's Witnesses and he began to attend secret Bible meetings with them. Berthold began public school in 1936. His mother was arrested in 1939 and sent to the Ravensbrueck concentration camp. When he was 9, his father sent him to live with his uncle in Berlin; however, three months later his father was forced to deliver him to the authorities. Afterwards, his father was imprisoned for refusing to serve in the military.
1940-44: The Germans sent Berthold to live with a childless couple who had a small farm. In the morning he would attend school and afterwards he would do farm work. Berthold could write one letter every six months to either his mother or father. But in 1943 he was forbidden to write any more letters to his parents. He could only hope and pray that they were still alive. Although he had no contact with other Jehovah's Witnesses, his faith in Jehovah and the teachings of the Bible helped him overcome his loneliness and uncertainty.
Berthold was reunited with his parents in 1945 when he was 15, and together the family resumed their lives as Jehovah's Witnesses. Berthold later moved to the United States.
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Johanna was born in Vienna when it was still the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her Christian family experienced the disruption resulting from the empire's collapse, as well as the instability of the Austrian republic. The depression of 1929 hit Vienna especially hard. In 1931 Johanna became a Jehovah's Witness.
1933-39: Johanna traveled constantly in and out of Austria distributing our Jehovah's Witness literature. In March 1938 Germany annexed Austria and her family was subjected to Nazi law; their religion was banned. In 1939 the Gestapo arrested Johanna at home at 6 a.m.; the court sentenced her to six years imprisonment. She was sent to a women's penitentiary in Aichach, located in Upper Bavaria in Germany.
1940-44: Johanna spent all six years of the war in Aichach, working every day from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m. sewing and knitting civilian clothes. She refused to do any work for the army. She was denied the right to have a Bible, but the authorities changed their mind when she argued that if other Germans had the right to go to church then she, too, had the right to own a Bible so that she could worship as well. Johanna trusted in Jehovah and he gave her the strength to withstand the hardships of the war.
Johanna was liberated in Aichach in May 1945 by U.S. forces and returned to her home in Austria. She subsequently settled in Braunau, a town in northern Austria.
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Ruth lived in Uzliekniai, a village in the Memelland, a region in southwestern Lithuania ruled by Germany until 1919. An avid reader, Ruth was distressed by news of postwar political turmoil. In 1923, when Uzliekniai became part of Lithuania, she joined the Jehovah's Witnesses. She married Eduard Warter, another Jehovah's Witness, in 1928. They had four children over the next five years.
1933-39: Ruth was busy raising her children and making sure they did their Bible studies. On March 22, 1939, the German army invaded and her family's land was annexed to Germany. The next day the Gestapo confiscated their religious literature and arrested some of their spiritual brothers. The village mayor and schoolteacher were Nazis. Their preaching was banned and their Bibles were publicly burned. When men started getting drafted, Ruth worried about her husband.
1940-44: Eduard was arrested because he refused to serve in the army, which would have violated God's fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill." He was condemned to death, but the real intention of the authorities was to win him away from Jehovah. An officer asked Ruth to persuade Eduard to join the army, but she refused. The government even offered to help them resettle in Germany, but this offer reminded Ruth of the devil's temptation of Christ. With God's help, Ruth and Eduard remained strong. They refused to cooperate with the Nazis.
Ruth and her husband were reunited in 1946. The Soviets, suspicious of Jehovah's Witnesses, deported them to Siberia in 1950. In 1969 they returned to Germany.
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Emma was born to Catholic parents in Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace-Lorraine. Her father died when she was 8 years old, and Emma grew up on her mother's mountain farm. At 14 she became a weaver. Later, she married and moved with her husband to the Alsatian town of Husseren-Wesserling. In 1930 she gave birth to a daughter. In 1933 the Arnolds moved to the nearby city of Mulhouse.
1933-39: Emma and her family decided to become Jehovah's Witnesses. Emma felt she was blessed with a loving husband and beautiful daughter. She kept house and taught her daughter music, painting, knitting, sewing, cooking and gardening. Emma and her husband studied the Bible and taught their daughter about Jehovah and the importance of obeying His commandments. Life in Mulhouse was peaceful and quiet under the French.
1940-44: After the Germans occupied their town in June 1940, Emma and her family were no longer free to be Jehovah's Witnesses. The Gestapo arrested her husband in 1941 and took her daughter in 1943. Emma returned to her mother's farm but was arrested there in September 1943. She was sent to the Vorbruck-Schirmeck camp in Alsace and then to the Gaggenau branch camp in 1944. She was first assigned to sewing and mending, and then sent to be a housemaid for an SS family. Despite the pressure, nothing broke her faith.
Emma was liberated by the French army in 1945. She returned to France, where she was reunited with her husband and daughter.
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Gregor was born in a village in the part of Austria known as Carinthia. During World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian army and was wounded. Raised a Catholic, Gregor and his wife became Jehovah's Witnesses during the late 1920s. Gregor supported his wife and six children by working as a farmer and quarryman.
1933-39: The Austrian government banned Jehovah's Witness missionary work in 1936. Gregor was accused of peddling without a license and briefly jailed. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Gregor led his congregation in a boycott of the plebiscite ratifying Austria's union with Germany. Because of Gregor's anti-Nazi stand, the mayor of his town had Gregor arrested on September 1, 1939. Gregor was sent to Berlin to be tried by a military court for opposing military service. He was sentenced to death. On December 7, 1939, Gregor was executed by guillotine in Berlin's Ploetzensee Prison.
1940-45: During the war, Gregor's entire family was arrested for refusing to cooperate with the Nazis. Two of Gregor's sons were killed: one son was beheaded in the Ploetzensee Prison, where Gregor had been beheaded in 1939; another son was shot. Gregor's oldest son, Franz, refused to participate in military training, would not salute the Nazi flag, and was sentenced to five years of hard labor in a camp in Germany.
In addition to Gregor and two of his sons, other members of Gregor's Jehovah's Witness congregation were persecuted by the Nazis.
Item ViewFranz and his family were Jehovah's Witnesses. Germany annexed Austria in 1938. After World War II began, Franz's father was executed because, as a Witness, he opposed war. In 1940, Franz refused to participate in military training and would not salute the Nazi flag. He was imprisoned, interrogated by the Gestapo (German Secret State Police) in Graz, and sentenced to five years of hard labor in a camp in Germany. Franz was liberated by US forces in 1945.
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