The Watchtower's Shameless Nazi-Milking

by metatron 36 Replies latest jw friends

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  waiting

  Good point, hippie,

  However, the WTBTS prides itself, and the locals are definitely proud of the same pride, that inside researchers in the WT writing department keep the local jw's up to date to the minute on local and worldwide events........and that's the reason the locals give as to why they don't have to read all that boring historical, geographical, political, religious, and scientific information.

  Remember? Why, reading the Watchtower & Awake, attending all the meetings, and reading all the other literature has been often equated as equal to or better than a silly college education. Why in the world would our children need that?

  So, keeping in mind that the local jw's have been told about the excellence - and balanced - writings of the WTBTS, .........yes, I would have thought that the WTBTS would have shared the information that Jehovah's Witnesses were considered as not-serious-political prisoners - not in there to be totally exterminated as we had always been told - but to be "re-educated".....waaaaaay down on the list of being persecuted in the Nazi camps. It would show that the WT writings are balanced. Now it shows the WT writings are not balanced.

  Of course, even you already agreed to that, eh?

  But again, I am not saying that any person who was unlucky enough to find themselves a prisoner of the Nazi regime should be denigrated. On the contrary, I am agreeing with you .

  waiting
• 

  jwsons

  From another angle, I remember ever read somewhere about WTBTS did gave the list of all Jehovah Zeugen (Jehovah's Witnesses) in Germany to Nazis to gain some benefits and the guy who gave the list latter even has President Knorr shaking his hands and was praised as a hero on stage in a convention, who remember details about it and I also ever read the documents (in German) with English translation about how President Joseph Rutherford shaked hands with Nazis. can anybody give links to these documents from somewhere else (since Kent's site now closing).

  Something like these:

  WT declaration 1
  WT declaration 2
  WT declaration 3
  WT declaration 4

  And These:

  http://www.bible.ca/jw-collaboration.htm

  http://www.bible.ca/jw-penton-letter.htm

  jwsons

  Edited by - jwsons on 10 January 2003 14:10:32
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  blondie

  What I glean from here is that:

  The WTS emphasizes their place in the concentration camps in a way that can be misleading by

  a. Not mentioning the total number of all people in the camps compared to the number of JWs. Being inaccurate in the number of JWs in the camps (a number that has been adjusted downward as secular material comes to light)

  b. Not mentioning the large numbers of Catholics and Protestants sent to the camps that did not support the Nazis regardless of what their own religious organizations said

  c. Not mentioning the others in the camp that supported and helped each other survive implying only the JWs had such qualities

  d. Not mentioning the Catholics and Protestants on the outside that risked their lives to protect Jews and others being sought by the Nazi government

  e. Not mentioning how many JWs who survived the camps did not stay JWs.

  I always wondered if Anne Frank's family had gone to the JWs next door for help if they would have turned them over to the Nazi police?

  Blondie
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  DanTheMan

  e. Not mentioning how many JWs who survived the camps did not stay JWs.

  Interesting comment. One time I was having a discussion with an elder who mentioned that many JW's who survived the camps eventually faded from the org. I wonder what the percentages are.
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  GermanXJW

  Some of the survivors that tell their story at the Stand Firm-events were inactive (and not only becaue of old age or so) before they were recruited by the Society to tell their story. Now they are publishers againbecause it is ministry when they tell their story and they can count the time.

  Hans-Werner Kusserow was one of the children of the Kusserow family and has written a book about his family's destiny in Hitler Germany. In the preface of his book he states that he is no longer an active JW. The Society uses his book nevertheless.
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  outnfree

  Maybe this was mentioned already, but the author of the original article cited says (in 2002) that he conducted his brief interview with Jan Kosilek twenty-five years prior. 2002-25 does not equal 1992, but rather 1977. Nothwithstanding all the interesting info about Mr. Bettelheim.... must've been an earlier WT article?

  out
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  GermanXJW

  I searched the Watchtower Library for expressions like "human degradation" and "dignity" together with camps. The search was not that successful, the only thing I found was the Bettelheim quote.

  Now we have some further information about Bettelheim. But who was Jan Kosilek???