I normally don't bother going to the midweek JW meetings much. However,
upon reading in the April 2017 Meeting Workbook that there was to be a video about Erich
Frost (former DO for Saxony & Nazi prisoner in Sachsenhausen
concentration camp) I wanted to attend as I had read about this brother
in history texts by Detlef Garbe and Hans Hesse. I had also visited
Auschwitz several times and noted that the museum had a display /
exhibition about Jehovah's Witnesses.
I didn't realize that the video would be presented by a member of the
GBoJW. Less still would I have expected someone with the demeanor of
Anthony Morris III! Nevertheless I watched the video. Heard Erich
Frost being interviewed. Heard him and brothers singing the song which
he composed - "Fest steht" (Stand Fast) and reworked by JW's as "Forward
You Witnesses".
The video then showed a series of watercolour paintings depicting life
in a concentration camp similar to that in which Erich Frost was
imprisoned. I had seen these watercolours before. I was surprised that
Morris did not identify the concentration camp depicted in the
watercolours and just confined his description to it being a "similar"
camp. Further, I was surprised that Morris didn't name the brother who
painted the watercolours. After all, he was baptized in the same year
as Erich Frost (1931), the same year that in Germany, they started
describing themselves as Jehovahs Zeugen and ditched the Bibelforscher
(Bible Students) title following the Columbus Ohio convention.
The "similar" concentration camp was actually Buchenwald. The painter
of the watercolours was Johannes Steyer. I was aware of this
individual's life and sufferings to an extent due to my interest in the
holocaust, but also because in 2013, I gave a talk in the then TMS using
using 7 of his watercolours. The unsolicited feedback I got from the audience then
was that they found the talk very both interesting and encouraging. However, the TMS
overseer didn't give me any counsel. He remained silent. It was the
last such talk that I was ever roistered for. Thereafter, I was confined
to Bible reading only. I knew that Johannes Steyer and his
watercolours were never featured in WT literature. The video, although
showing his paintings, nevertheless seems to maintain this significant
reticence about identifying the brother, his plight, his experiences,
and what can be learned from him. He painted the watercolours in the
1970s, and when he died in 1998 (11 years after Erich Frost died), he
bequeathed his watercolours to the art archive of the JW branch in
Selters, Germany.
In 2013, I couldn't but help think that the TMS overseer confined me to
Bible reading only, and didn't give me counsel, as there was no mention
of the brother in WT literature. Perhaps, I thought, he disliked me
sourcing my visual aids outside the domain of the published WT
literature labyrinth. What was significant the night I was watching the
video in the kingdom hall, is that it was that same TMS overseer who
was facilitating the video. I watched him like a hawk. I got the
merest fraction of a second of eye contact from him during the item
about Erich Frost. This same "brother" (an elder) has shunned me for
the last two years!
Since watching the above video (on Thursday 20th April 2017 in my
congregation), I have been asking why the WTBTS decided to show such on
the date they did. I have no recollection of Morris giving a rationale
for the timing of the showing. Either he didn't give a rationale or I
missed something. However, whilst looking at the website of the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum about Bro Frost and Sis Simone Arnold
Liebster (her biography is called "Facing the Lion") I noted that the
Monday following the showing of the video (24th April 2017) was a day of
commemoration related to the holocaust.
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum states the following regarding that Monday....
"The internationally recognized date for Holocaust Remembrance Day
corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. It marks
the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In Hebrew, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called Yom Hashoah. When the
actual date of Yom Hashoah falls on a Friday, the state of Israel
observes Yom Hashoah on the preceding Thursday. When it falls on a
Sunday, Yom Hashoah is observed on the following Monday."
So I believe that the timing of the showing of the video is related to the above. However, I'm at a loss as to what the governing body of JW hoped to gain by such contrived timing. I just can't believe it was a coincidence.
Examples of Bro Johannes Steyer's watercolours.....
