The JWs have tried to pad the number of JWs in camps. How many actually went and how many died? Can you site the source also? Wiki has it padded. If you know can you post me a link to [email protected]
How many JWs actually died in Nazi camps
by dogon 41 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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dogon
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The Rebel
Dogon, The more relevant question is why were Jehovers Witnesses in the concentration camps in the first place?
The answer has to do with property ownership. If you do your research, you will find how Judge Rutherford fully supported Hitler and " YES" wrote Hitler letters praising his policies against the Jews. It was only after Hitler confiscated " Kingdom Halls" in Nazi Germany, that Rutherford decided to write very " Rude" letters to Hitler.( i.e the letter recorded in the year book) and this is why " German" Jehovers Witnesses ended up in concentration camps.
I will find the relevant documentation to support my statements, unless more administrative members have the information to hand?
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Simon
Suppose that "only" 5m instead of 6m Jews died in concentration camps. Would this make them liars and cheats? Or still unfortunate victims of a terrible atrocity? Some people want to claim the number is zero ...
I don't see the point in this divisive "oh, it wasn't as bad as you make out" attempts to diminish the pain and suffering that we know happened to so many, whatever the reason. Who cares the number, the deed is the issue and whether it is 1 or 1m it is always that many too many.
It would be sad to be so determined to catch the WTS in a lie, any lie, that we'd be willing to use the victims of such barbarity as pawns by attempting to somehow diminish what happened.
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The Rebel
Whilst I agree with you Simon, I also believe the only reason Jehovers Witnesses ended up in concentration camps was because Judge Rutherford wrote ridiculous letters to Hitler. Therefore the persecution of Jehovers Witness was preventable.
As for the holocaust and concentration camps, it is a reminder of the human ability for evil, and it should be studied by our children and our children's children, and never forgotten. But surely the most important lesson, is that we must teach our children the lesson is to care about each innocent individual and their fate without prejudice.
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slimboyfat
Wikipedia has the correct numbers from Detlef Garbe the leading expert on this topic. There were 20,000 JWs in Nazi Germany, 10,000 were imprisoned, 2000 of them in concentration camps, and around 1200 died in custody including 250 who were executed.
This is the book to read on the topic.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Between-Resistance-Martyrdom-Jehovahs-Witnesses/dp/0299207943
JWs opposed Nazism before the Nazis even took power.
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OrphanCrow
sfb: Wikipedia has the correct numbers from Detlef Garbe the leading expert on this topic. There were 20,000 JWs in Nazi Germany, 10,000 were imprisoned, 2000 of them in concentration camps, and around 1200 died in custody including 250 who were executed.
What those numbers don't reveal is that half of the JWs/BibleStudents that were arrested did sign the declaration to be released.
What you won't find in those numbers is the number of JWs who held positions of privilege during the war with SS members and their families. You won't find the accounts of the JWs who sat out the war in a posh camp as caretakers of Himmler's castle. You won't find the accounts of how JWs were released, by Heinrich Himmler the leader of the SS, on a handshake and considered partially free by war's end.
A Castle, Estates and Berry Picking: Personal Servants and Positions of Privilege
and you won't find the account of how Himmler had made an order in 1944 to relocate JWs to conquered territories:
In July 1944, Himmler ordered Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of the RSHA, to begin the exporting of the faith of the Jehovah's Witnesses to the occupied east.[39] Himmler considered the Jehovah's Witnesses of being frugal, hard-working, honest and fanatic in their pacifism, and that these traits were extremely desirable for the suppressed nations in the east
I understand the position of not denigrating the JWs and Bible Students who did suffer during WW2...but I also think it is important to set the record straight about what really went on with the JWs and the Nazis by the time the war was over.
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Giordano
The number of Jehovah's Witnesses who died in concentration camps and prisons during the Nazi era is estimated at 1,000 Germans and 400 from other countries, including about 90 Austrians and 120 Dutch. (The non-German Jehovah's Witnesses suffered a considerably higher percentage of deaths than their German co-religionists.) In addition, about 250 German Jehovah's Witnesses were executed—mostly after being tried and convicted by military tribunals—for refusing to serve in the German military.
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005394
Rutherford's letters to Hitler:
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slimboyfat
Some of the JWs who signed the declaration did so as a form of "theocratic warfare". And that others did so as a result of pressure... is hardly surprising given the circumstances.
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DATA-DOG
Of the supposed number of JWs who perished, what percentage were "anointed." After all, Satan, the great instigator, instigated the war to stamp out Jesus, brothers. Ahem.......😐
DD
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OrphanCrow
Giorando: (The non-German Jehovah's Witnesses suffered a considerably higher percentage of deaths than their German co-religionists.)...
Exactly. What the numbers reported don't reveal is the huge split that was apparent in the German WT at the time.
There had been a division in 1925 that saw many of the Bible Students in Germany leave the WT and follow Conrad Binkele's Bible Students. These Bible Students (the Earnest Bible Students), that were loyal to Russell's teaching, still followed the dual covenant theology that Russell espoused and they rejected Rutherford's replacement theology.
There are accounts of the JWs, in the employ of SS officers, who spoke out against the Jews...exactly like Rutherford did. And then....those poor Bible Students (who got lumped into the "official" JW numbers after the war), that supported the Jewish homeland, were the ones who got the worst treatment. The JWs who followed the Rutherford replacement theology got the best, and the privileged, treatment by the SS.