I caught the back end of the victimization paranoia when I was a kid. We were told the authorities would come looking for the elders and we were to remain shtum even through threats and beatings (for some reason the authorities always had german accents - Vere are ze elders! mind you a lot of JW's are closet racists)
My mother bought a reversible coat and sunglasses for the ministry so that if we were caught witnessing during the great trib she'd nip behind a corner, reverse the coat, put the glasses on and walk off whistling nonchalantly. Bit before my time but after the group at my grans house in the 50's they used to have a drill where someone would pretend to be the police outside the door and everyone had to gather their books together and slot them inside my grans piano and then get board games out and pretend it was a social gathering. Kinda like those speakeasy's you see on films.
There seemed to be a constant paranoia about being put under ban in the 50's and 60's. My grandad told me that at one time there was a rota for secret meeting places if the KH's were ever closed down and that the meeting times would change week to week to confuse the authorities if they ever did suss where JW's were meeting. That didn't last long though, too much for people to remember and too much admin.
Every time the family watched The Sound Of Music at the end scene and they're fleeing over the mountains to Swiss freedom they'd say 'that's us during the great trib escaping the ban'
I think they all looked forward to the great tribulation as it seemed quite exciting compared to the dull monotonous existence of the ordinary JW.
