Blacks in concentration camps

by sableindian 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

sableindian

I know Jehovahs Witnesses have expressed various people who were in concentration camps. I have never seen in print their acknowledgement of Blacks being there. Although Blacks, in their publications of being in the camps, mention Jehovah's Witnesses. Also others mention Blacks. So, it someone knows of a publication that mentions that please let me know. Happiness comes through doors you
didn't even know you left open
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.
Qelilah Solomon
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.
larc

Sable,
That is a very interesting question. In the 1940's, there were very few blacks in Europe. However, I would think that they would have been rounded up like others who were not of Aryian (sp?) race.
sableindian

Yes, they were rounded up, experimented on, starved and killed. But I was just wondering is there any information where the Watchtower mentions them, since I have seen Jehovah's Witnesses in Black's publications when they mention experiences in the camps.
Looking for publication data.
Thanks, Happiness comes through doors you
didn't even know you left open
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.
Qelilah Solomon
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.
sableindian

Maybe this documentary will run in the US Hitler's Forgotten Black Victims
September 26, 1997
The Nazi's final solution had a dress rehearsal in Namibia, writes Delroy Constantine-Simms
At a time when the fight for justice for Jewish Holocaust victims makes front-page news, few people know that a significant number of black people suffered, too, under Nazi rule. Revelations about their experiences are made in a documentary, to be screened in Britain next month, entitled Hitlers Forgotten Victims.
It reveals that sterilisation programmes of blacks were instituted by Germanys most senior Nazi geneticist, Doctor Eugen Fischer, who developed his racial theories in German South West Africa (now Namibia) long before World War I. In Namibia, Fischer claimed there were genetic dangers arising from race mixing between German colonists and African women.
The documentary also provides disturbing photographic evidence of German genocidal tendencies in Africa. In 1904 the Herero tribe revolted against their German colonial masters in a quest to keep their land. It was a rebellion that lasted four years and led to the death of 60 000 Herero people 80% of their population. The survivors were imprisoned in concentration camps or used as guinea pigs for medical experiments, a foretaste of things to come.
Hitlers Forgotten Victims shows that Germanys 24 000-strong black community were the number-one target for Hitlers sterilisation programme. The film makes it clear that Hitlers view on racial superiority did not develop in a vacuum. He was influenced by the work of the 19th- century German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, whose views were based on distorted versions of Darwinism. He wrote of woolly- haired Negroes incapable of higher mental development.
The film shows that the Nazis obsession with racial purity and eugenics was provoked and intensified in 1918, following Germanys defeat in World War I. Under the terms of the peace treaty signed at Versailles, Germany was stripped of its African colonies and forced to submit to the occupation of the Rhineland. The deployment of African troops from the French colonies to police the territory incensed many Germans.
To many it was the final humiliation that began with their 1918 defeat in the World War I. The film shows Germans complaining bitterly in newspapers and propaganda films about African soldiers from the French colonial army having relations with their women.
As soon as Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in 1936, he retaliated by targeting black people living there. At least 400 mixed- race children were forcibly sterilised in the area by the end of 1937, while 400 others disappeared into camps.
Hans Hauck, a victim of Hitlers sterilisation programme, says: We were lucky that we werent victims of euthanasia; we were only sterilised. We had no anaesthetic. Once I got my vasectomy certificate, I had to sign an agreement that we were not allowed to have sexual relations whatsoever with Germans.
In 1932 in Bresau, Hitler gave a speech in which he ordered Africans, Jews and anyone not Aryan to leave Germany or go into the camps. But most blacks in Germany could not heed Hitlers warning as they were German citizens with German passports and had nowhere else to go. While a fair number escaped to France, others tried to return to the former German colonies, taken over by the League of Nations in 1920. The British colonial authorities in the newly named South West Africa would not allow black Germans refugee status on the grounds that they had fought for the Germans in World War I.
Hitlers Forgotten Victims does not give enough insight into the lives of black Germans who resisted the Nazis, such as black activist Lari Gilges, who founded an organisation of entertainers that fought the Nazis in his home town of Dusseldorf. He was murdered by the SS in 1933, the year Hitler came to power. More insight is given into black and mixed-race Germans who toured in the Hillerkus Afrikaschau circuses, films and shows to escape persecution.
Says interviewee Elizabeth Morton: My father was one of the founders of the Afrikaschau. There was everything: dances, songs and acrobatics, music breaking, tap dancing. It was like a variety show. The Afrikaschau actually became the place to go for all black people; it was something new.
These shows were eventually taken over in 1940 by the SS, who considered them racially unacceptable and used them for racist propaganda. But eventually Hitlers propaganda chief, Josef Goebbels, realised that in order to spread the Nazi gospel of Aryan supremacy, he needed to exploit the most popular medium of the time German feature films. Propaganda films such as Kongo Express, Quax in Africa, and Auntie Wanda from Uganda presented Germany as a benevolent colonial power.
Says black actor Werner Egiomue: We had an agent then who had all the addresses of black people in Berlin. The Reichs chamber of commerce was in touch with him when they were casting a film. It was fun inside the studio. Outside the door you could be arrested. But inside you were as safe as in a bank.
Another experience is given by the Michaels family, who were orphaned and separated at an early age. Theodore Michael, one of Germanys greatest character actors of the time, gives a gripping account of how he survived.
He says: Black people in Germany were aware that if the Nazis wanted to get rid of us, they could catch us in one swoop. I was eventually sent to a munitions factory, where I was liberated by Russian soldiers. They were surprised to see a black man still alive.
Not only black Germans suffered at the hands of the Nazis black soldiers were also targets. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 200 000 black troops from African colonies were serving in Europe. The Nazis segregated black inmates for extra special treatment of the fatal kind. In breach of the Geneva Convention, black prisoners were denied food, and given dangerous jobs. In film never seen before, black soldiers and civilians are seen scavenging for scraps of food in garbage heaps at the Hemer POW camp near Dortmund in north-west Germany. No one knows how many black soldiers or civilians died in the camps at the hands of the SS guards, producer Moise Shewa says, because where Jews were noted as Jews, blacks were noted by nationality.
One description of concentration camp life is given by Johnny William, born to an African mother and white Frenchman, who was transported by the Gestapo to the Neugengamme concentration camp near Hamburg. There were five or six of us. As soon as we arrived, we were immediately separated from the white deportees by the SS. They considered us to be subhuman beings like animals, chimpanzees.
Hitlers Forgotten Victims makes it clear that the treatment of blacks in the Holocaust should be acknowledged. Most black Germans were stripped of their nationality, so it has been difficult for them to claim reparations. Hopefully, this film will go some way to force the German government to acknowledge their experience at the hands of the Nazis and recompense black Germans in the same manner as the Jewish community, who suffered the same fate.
JT

DEEEEEEEEEEP!
refiners fire

Why would the Jehovahs Witnesses acxknowledge someone as "black" , "Jewish" or " yellow skinned"?
Theres no reason, they dont operate within "racial" parameters. They are all simply ..."brothers".
JT

Why would the Jehovahs Witnesses acxknowledge someone as "black" , "Jewish" or " yellow skinned"?
Theres no reason, they dont operate within "racial" parameters. They are all simply ..."brothers".
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i agree in fact that is one of the reason the jw were attractive for my mom leaving in rural NC with all kinds of racial issues during the 60's
it was a white lady who started a study with my mom- wt offers all kinds of bait and switch things
how sad
DazedAndConfused

I beg to differ:
...The negro race is supposed to be descended from Ham, whose special degradation is mentioned in Gen. 9:22, 25.
[Emphasis Added]

*** The Watchtower of April 15, 1900 p. 122 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
There are probably as many as a hundred colored brethren on the Watch Tower lists, some of them very clear in the truth, and very earnest in its service, financially and otherwise. We have received letters from several of these, who had intended engaging in the volunteer work, expressing surprise that in the call for volunteers in the March 1st issue we restricted the inquiry to white Protestant churches. They rightly realized that we have not the slightest of race prejudice , and that we love the colored brethren with just the same warmth of heart that we love the white, and they queried therefore why such a distinction should be made in the call. The reason is that so far as we are able to judge, colored people have less education than whites - many of them quite insufficient to permit them to profit by such reading as we have to give forth. Our conclusion therefore is based upon the supposition that reading matter distributed to a colored congregation would more than half of it be utterly wasted , and a very small percentage indeed likely to yield good results.
[Emphasis Added]
*** The Watchtower Reprints 1900 October 1 p.2706 ***
*** Zion's Watch Tower 1900 October 1 p. 296-297 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
CAN RESTITUTION CHANGE THE ETHIOPIAN'S SKIN?
The following, from the New York World, is the third we have seen reported. These suggest and illustrate the process of restitution soon due. The item reads:
"From Black to White He Slowly Turned"
Parkersburg, W. Va., Sept. 8. It has fallen to the lot of the Rev. William H. Draper, pastor of the Logan Memorial church, of Washington Conference, A.M.E. church, of this town, to give a living affirmative answer to the famous Biblical question, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?" Though once as black as charcoal, the Rev. Mr. Draper is now white. His people say that his color was changed in answer to prayer . Many years ago Draper was employed by a fair-skinned man, and he was often heard to remark that if he could only be white like his employer, he would be happy . While in the white man's service Draper `experienced' religion.
From that day forward he prayed constantly and fervently that he might become white. Thirty years ago his prayer began to be answered. He first experienced a prickling sensation on his face, and upon close investigation found a number of small white spots scarcely larger than the point of a pin. He became alarmed, thinking he had some peculiar disease but he did not suffer and aside from the prickling sensation felt nothing unusual. Gradually the white spots became larger and extended themselves, until now, after the change has been in progress for over thirty years, Draper has not a single dark spot on his body.
[Emphasis Added]
*** Zion's Watch Tower 1902 July 15 p.215-216 ***
*** The Watchtower Reprints 1902 July 15 p.3043 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
The Negro Not A Beast
While it is true that the white race exhibits some qualities of superiority over any other, we are to remember that there are wide differences in the same Caucasian (Semitic and Aryan) family; and also we should remember that some of the qualities which have given this branch of the human family its preeminence in the world are not such as can be pointed to as in all respects admirable....The secret of the greater intelligence and aptitude of the Caucasian undoubtedly in great measure is to be attributed to the commingling of blood amongst its various branches; and this was evidently forced in large measure by circumstances under divine control.
[Emphasis Added]
*** The Watchtower Reprints, July 15, 1902, p. 3043 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
Suppose a missionary and his wife removed to China; not only would the influence of the climate and soil be manifested upon themselves, but the same would be still more manifested in their children. Whoever will give careful attention to this matter will notice that each succeeding child born in that foreign country will have increasingly resemblance to the Chinese - the hair, the skin, the shape of the eyes, and in general all features will bear closer resemblance with each succeeding child. We can readily suppose that if so much change occurs in a few years, ten or twenty centuries under similar conditions would turn any white people into regular Chinese , even supposing there were no intermarrying.
[Emphasis Added]
*** Watch Tower Feb. 15, 1904 p.52-53 CAN THE ETHIOPIAN CHANGE HIS SKIN? ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
We answer, No. But all will admit that what the Ethiopian cannot do for himself God could readily do for him. The difference between the races of men and the differences between their languages have long been arguments against the solidarity of the human family. The doctrine of restitution has also raised the question. How could all men be brought to perfection and which color of skin was the original ? The answer is now provided. God can change the Ethiopian's skin in his own due time.
Prof. H. A. Edwards, Supt. of Schools in Slater, Mo., has written for the public press an elaborate description of how Julius Jackson, of New Frankfurt, Mo., a negro boy of nine years, began to grow white in September, 1901, and is now fully nine-tenths white. He assures us that this is no whitish skin disease; but that the new white skin is as healthy as that of any white boy, and that the changed boy has never been sick and never has taken medicines.
[Emphasis Added]
*** Watchtower April 1, 1914 p.105-106 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
Recognizing that it meant either the success or the failure of the enterprise of the [Photo] Drama as respects the whites, we have been compelled to assign the colored friends to the gallery , which, however, is just as good for seeing and hearing as any other part of The Temple. Some were offended at this arrangement.
We have received numerous letters from the colored friends, some claiming that it is not right to make a difference, others indignantly and bitterly denouncing us as enemies of the colored people. Some, confident that Brother Russell had never sanctioned such a discrimination, told that they believe it would be duty to stand up for equal rights and always to help the oppressed, etc. We were obliged to explain the facts, assuring all of our loving interest in the colored people, and of our desire to do them good, and not injury . We again suggested that if a suitable place could be found in which the Drama could be presented for the benefit of the colored people alone, we would be glad to make such arrangements , or to cooperate with any others in doing so.
[...]
If nature favors the colored brethren and sisters in the exercise of humility it is that much to their advantage, if they are rightly exercised by it . A little while, and our humility will work out for our good. A little while, and those who have been faithful to their Covenant of Sacrifice will be granted new bodies, spiritual, beyond the veil, where color and sex distinctions will be no more. A little while, and the Millennial kingdom will be inaugurated, which will bring restitution to all mankind - restitution to the perfection of mind and body, feature and color, to the grand original standard, which God declared "very good," and which was lost for a time through sin, but which is soon to be restored by the powerful kingdom of Messiah.
[Emphasis Added]
*** The Golden Age, July 24, 1929, p. 702 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
Question: Is there anything in the Bible that reveals the origin of the Negro? Answer: It is generally believed that the curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the Black race . Certain it is that when Noah said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren, he pictured the future of the Colored race. They have been and are a race of servants, but now in the dawn of the twentieth century, we are all coming to see this matter of service in its true light and to find that the only real joy in life is in serving others; not bossing them. There is no servant in the world as good as a good Colored servant , and the joy that he gets from rendering faithful service is one of the purest joys there is in the world.
[Emphasis Added]
*** The Watchtower, Feb. 1, 1952, p. 95 ***
[Note: not available on 1993/1995/1999 CD-ROM]
Really, our colored brothers have a great cause for rejoicing. Their race is meek and teachable , and from it comes a high percentage of the theocratic increase.
[Emphasis Added]
*** Watchtower 1973 January 15 p.37 Why Believe in God? ***
In race relations, do you see genuine improvement among the nations of the world? Most people readily say 'no'; there are strong racial hatreds on every continent. But we read statements like this one concerning Jehovah's witnesses:
" I am struck with their genuine high regard for the people of all races. Unlike some who pay lip service to the doctrine of racial brotherhood , the Witnesses welcome all to their society-even to places of outstanding leadership-without reference to color or feature."-G. Norman Eddy in Journal of Bible and Religion.
[Emphasis Added]
*** Awake! Oct. 8, 1977 p.29 ***
Even up to a hundred years ago the Catholic Church held the view that blacks were cursed by God . Maxwell explains that this view "apparently survived until 1873 when Pope Pius IX attached an indulgence to a prayer for the `wretched Ethiopians in Central Africa that almighty God may at length remove the curse of Cham [Ham] from their hearts.
[Emphasis Added]
*** Awake! 1982 February 8 p.14-15 The Races-What Is Their Origin? ***
Have the churches of Christendom always treated "everyone on the same basis"? Consider how the Catholic and Lutheran Churches supported Hitler's scheme to produce a "master race." And for centuries the Catholic Church taught that Negroes were a cursed race . John F. Maxwell states in his book Slavery and the Catholic Church that this view "apparently survived until 1873 when Pope Pius IX attached an indulgence to a prayer for the 'wretched Ethiopians in Central Africa that almighty God may at length remove the curse of Cham [Ham] from their hearts.'" (Italics ours) And even to this day some church organizations openly practice racial discrimination.
Regardless of how politicians and religionists view the matter, the Bible and science indicate that all races are equal and descend from a common source. Interestingly, The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 1970, Vol. 2, page 149, refers to the "scientific concept of the equality of the races" and admits the "scientific validation" of humanity's single origin.
[Emphasis Added]
JT

I'm sitting here singing me a good ole negro hymm
great post from the GOLDEN AGE
sableindian

Hi Emp,
I am only doing this because I have the 1976 yearbook where Jews and Catholics are mentioned. Yes, they DO, mention others in the camps. I have also read Watchtower articles that mention race. So, my question is still valid.
Shalom,
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.
Qelilah Solomon
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_:-.,_,.-:**:-.,_,.

Blacks in concentration camps

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