*** w11 10/1 p. 14 “Defiance That Commands Respect” ***
Did
Hitler receive letters of protest from church officials concerning the
outrages perpetrated by the National Socialists, or Nazis?
Thanks for highlighting the German letters
There's also Greece et al
Proclaimers Book, pages 694 to 695
Global Publicity Brings Some Relief
Other governments too have dealt harshly with Jehovah’s Witnesses, prohibiting their meetings and public preaching. In some cases these governments have caused the Witnesses to be forced out of secular employment and their children to be barred from the schools. A number of governments have also resorted to physical brutality. Yet, these same lands usually have constitutions that guarantee religious freedom. With a view to bringing relief to their persecuted brothers, the Watch Tower Society has frequently given worldwide publicity to details concerning such treatment. This is done by means of the Watchtower and Awake! magazines, and these reports are at times taken up by the public press. Many thousands of letters making appeals in behalf of the Witnesses then flood into the offices of government officials from all over the world.
As a result of such a campaign in 1937, the governor of Georgia, in the United States, received some 7,000 letters from four countries within a two-day period, and the mayor of La Grange, Georgia, was also deluged with thousands of letters. Such campaigns were likewise conducted in behalf of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Argentina in 1978 and 1979, Benin in 1976, Burundi in 1989, Cameroon in 1970, the Dominican Republic in 1950 and 1957, Ethiopia in 1957, Gabon in 1971, Greece in 1963 and 1966, Jordan in 1959, Malawi in 1968, 1972, 1975, and again in 1976, Malaya in 1952, Mozambique in 1976, Portugal in 1964 and 1966, Singapore in 1972, Spain in 1961 and again in 1962, also Swaziland in 1983.
As a recent example of what is done by Jehovah’s Witnesses worldwide to bring relief to their oppressed brothers, consider the situation in Greece. Because of the intensity of persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses at the instigation of the Greek Orthodox clergy there, in 1986 both the Watchtower and Awake! magazines (with combined international circulation of over 22,000,000 copies) reported details of the persecution. Witnesses in other lands were invited to write to officials of the Greek government in behalf of their brothers. They did; and as reported in the Athens newspaper Vradyni, the minister of justice was deluged with over 200,000 letters from upwards of 200 lands and in 106 languages.
The following year, when a case involving the Witnesses was heard in the appeals court in Hania, Crete, representatives of Jehovah’s Witnesses were present from seven other lands (England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, and the United States) as parties in the case and in support of their Christian brothers. Then, following an adverse decision in 1988 in the Supreme Court of Greece in yet another case involving the Witnesses, appeal was made to the European Commission of Human Rights. There, on December 7, 1990, 16 jurists from almost all parts of Europe were presented with a file of 2,000 arrests and hundreds of court cases in which Jehovah’s Witnesses in Greece had been sentenced because they spoke about the Bible. (Actually, there were 19,147 of such arrests in Greece from 1938 to 1992.) The Commission unanimously decided that the case should be heard by the European Court of Human Rights.
Proclaimers Book, pages 315 to 317
In the Face of Vicious Persecution
The apostle Paul compared the Christian congregation to the human body and said: “Its members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the other members suffer with it.” (1 Cor. 12:25, 26) That is how Jehovah’s Witnesses react when they hear reports about the persecution of their Christian brothers.
In Germany during the Nazi era, the government took harsh repressive measures against Jehovah’s Witnesses. There were only some 20,000 Witnesses in Germany at the time, a relatively small band despised by Hitler. United action was needed. On October 7, 1934, every congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout Germany met secretly, prayed together, and sent a letter to the government stating their determination to continue to serve Jehovah. Then many of those in attendance fearlessly went out to witness to their neighbors about Jehovah’s name and Kingdom. On the same day, Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout the rest of the earth also met in their congregations and, after united prayer, sent cablegrams to the Hitler government in support of their Christian brothers.
In 1948, after the clergy-inspired persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Greece was laid bare, the president of Greece and various ministers of government received thousands of letters from Jehovah’s Witnesses in behalf of their Christian brothers. These came from the Philippines, Australia, North and South America, and other areas.
When Awake! magazine exposed the inquisitional methods being employed against the Witnesses in Spain in 1961, letters of protest deluged the authorities there. Officials were shocked to find that people around the world knew exactly what they were doing, and as a result, even though the persecution continued, some of the police began to deal with the Witnesses with greater restraint. In various African lands too, officials have heard from Witnesses in many other parts of the world when they learned of cruel treatment being meted out to their Christian brothers and sisters there.
If no favorable response is forthcoming from the government, the persecuted Witnesses are not forgotten. Because of persisting in religious persecution for many years, some governments have repeatedly been deluged with letters of appeal and protest. That was true of Argentina. On one occasion in 1959, the secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cults took one of our brothers to a room where there were several bookcases filled with letters that had poured in from all over the world. He was amazed that someone as far away as Fiji would write appealing for freedom of worship in Argentina.
In certain instances increased freedom has been granted when rulers realized that people worldwide knew what they were doing and that there were many who really cared. That was true in Liberia in 1963. Outrageous treatment had been meted out by government soldiers to convention delegates at Gbarnga. The president of Liberia was deluged with letters of protest from around the world, and the U.S. State Department intervened because a U.S. citizen was involved. Finally, President Tubman wired the Watch Tower Society’s headquarters expressing willingness to receive a delegation of Jehovah’s Witnesses to discuss matters. Two of the delegates—Milton Henschel and John Charuk—had been at Gbarnga. Mr. Tubman acknowledged that what had occurred was “an outrage” and said: “I am sorry this thing happened.”
Following that interview, an Executive Order was issued notifying “all people throughout the country, that Jehovah’s Witnesses shall have the right and privilege of free access to any part of the country to carry on their missionary work and religious worship without molestation from anyone. They shall have the protection of the law both of their person and their property and the right to freely worship God according to the dictates of their consciences, observing in the meantime the laws of the Republic by showing respect to the national flag when it is being hoisted or lowered at ceremonies by standing at attention.” But it was not required that they salute, in violation of their Christian conscience.
However, as of 1992, no such official pronouncement had yet been forthcoming in Malawi, though violence against the Witnesses there had subsided to a considerable extent. Jehovah’s Witnesses there have been the victims of some of the most vicious religious persecution in African history. One wave of such persecution swept the country in 1967; another began early in the 1970’s. Tens of thousands of letters were written in their behalf from all parts of the world. Phone calls were made. Cablegrams were sent. On humanitarian grounds many prominent people of the world were moved to speak out.
So extreme was the brutality that some 19,000 of Jehovah’s Witnesses and their children fled across the border to Zambia in 1972. The nearby Witness congregations in Zambia quickly gathered food and blankets for their brothers. Money and supplies donated by Jehovah’s Witnesses all over the world poured into Watch Tower branch offices and were channeled to the refugees by the headquarters office in New York. More than enough came in to care for all the needs of the refugees in the camp at Sinda Misale. As news spread through the camp of the arrival of trucks bearing food, clothing, and tarpaulins to provide covering, the Malawian brothers could not help giving way to tears of joy because of this evidence of the love of their Christian brothers.
When any of their number are held in detention, fellow Witnesses do not forsake them, not even when personal risk is involved. During the ban in Argentina, when a group of Witnesses were detained for 45 hours, four other Witnesses brought food and clothing for them, only to be imprisoned themselves. In 1989 the wife of a circuit overseer in Burundi, upon learning of the plight of her Christian brothers, tried to take food to the prison for them. But she herself was arrested and held hostage for two weeks, because the police were trying to get their hands on her husband.
Along with whatever they can do in all these ways, love for their Christian brothers moves Jehovah’s Witnesses to raise their voices in prayer to God in their behalf. They do not pray that God put an immediate stop to wars and food shortages, because Jesus Christ foretold such things for our time. (Matt. 24:7) Nor do they pray for God to prevent all persecution, because the Bible clearly states that true Christians will be persecuted. (John 15:20; 2 Tim. 3:12) But they do earnestly petition that their Christian brothers and sisters be strengthened to stand firm in faith in the face of whatever hardship comes upon them. (Compare Colossians 4:12.) The record testifying to their spiritual strength gives abundant evidence that such prayers have been answered.
