Hello there all,
A while ago I transcribed a video interview with Rabbi Michael Berenbaum from the University of Judaism. The interview concerns Jehovah's Witnesses during the second world war in the German concentration camp system. Berenbaum is a historian and specifically researches Jehovah's Witnesses during the Shoah and also the idea of martyrdom. I transcribed it [very roughly and I apologize for the errors] for a personal project that I'm working on and today I thought I'd post it here for posterity. The interview comes from the documentary 'Knocking' and is in the extra features section.
Its primarily of historical interest and makes for some interesting reading.
Hope you enjoy it
SB
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Reality
in the Holocaust is always stranger than fiction, because our imagination lacks the capacity to fully project the reality that was
experienced in the camps.
I
wouldn't say that so few know about it, I would say so few study
about it. So I wouldn't say that so few scholars know about the fate
of Jehovah's Witnesses in the concentration camps, so few scholars
study the fate of Jehovah's Witnesses in the concentration camps. I
study it because of the very fact that I'm interested in the question
of choice, I'm interested in the religious categories and I'm also
interested in the historic question of martyrdom.
Kiddush
HaShem
which is the classed definition of martyrdom means the sanctification
of God's name. Most Jews were denied the possibility of Kiddush
HaShem
because they weren't killed because of their faith, they were killed
because of the blood they contained within them.
In
the classical sense of the term Jehovah's Witnesses were the
embodiment of Kiddush
HaShem.
They died for the sanctification of God's name in their view. One
would probably not be accurate by saying Jehovah's Witnesses as a
group would be the only martyrs of the holocaust. There were groups
of Jews that experienced martyrdom.
There's
a famous story of a rabbi who prepared his community for martyrdom
and even made the blessing of martyrdom. “Blessed art thou Lord our
God, sovereign of the universe, who has commanded us to sanctify
God's name in public”, and with that he prepared to enter the
chambers and to die. That's a group martyrdom. There are indications
of other types of martyrdom.
Jehovah's
Witnesses as a collectivity had the greatest choice as to whether to
leave the camps or not; and therefore as a group when Jehovah's
Witnesses chose not to leave the camps, they had the clearest
indication of martyrdom because the clearest indication of martyrdom
is [that] they sanctify God's name by refusing even to sign their name to a
Nazi document.
The
deal was very simple: Renounce your faith, indicate that you're not
going to participate in Jehovah's Witnesses meetings, you're not
going to proselytise, you're not going to spread the faith and you
can go free. Simple half page document, fill it out, sign it and you
go free.
Now
let me tell you something, the Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to
sign that document had an integrity of their own, its not an
integrity I agree with because anybody who could have gotten out of
camps should have signed any damn thing they wanted [you] to sign for the
Nazis, because to treat their documents as a serious document, which
is asking you to regard that as an agreement, or as a statement, is
to treat their society with a respect it does not deserve.
But
the deal was simple: Sign a document renounce your faith, you go
free. Few renounced their faith and most chose to suffer rather than
to sign the documents that would have set them free. Let me stress, I
don't agree with that because its according the other side an
integrity they did not earn and they certainly do not deserve; and
anything you could do, anything you could do to get out of the camps
was in my point of view a mitzvah,
a good deed; and surely far more beneficial than signing or not
signing a document that the Nazi's requested of you.
They
should have signed the form and said my signature on a document
presented to me by the Nazis has no force whatsoever; They should
have said: "They can take this document and do with it exactly what
it's worth; which is zero; I'm going to continue my faith and the
hell with them." But get out of the camp; Why give them a free victim?
Why regard them as having integrity enough to be concerned as to what
the hell you give them?
If
they're oppressing people, if they're killing people, if they're
systematically murdering people, what difference does it make if you
behave with integrity towards them? I would never tell a Jehovah's
Witness, never instruct them to give up their faith. But I would say
that the Nazis were unworthy of such a magnificent demonstration of
faith.
So
I would be prepared to face God and say: "God, you know I signed a
document renouncing my faith in order to get out of a concentration
camp and not allow the Nazis one cheap victory." I hope that's the
worst thing that I can do; but I'd be a pretty damn good human being;
be a pretty wonderful human being if that was the worst thing I did
in life. So
I'd be prepared for God to see me do that.
The
story about the Holocaust for Jews is that the Holocaust was an
atrocity. They suffered and they were killed not because of their
reason and not because of their choice but because of the choice made
by others; and they faced a situation which they had no ethically
proper choice. They had the choice between the impossible and the
horrific. Jehovah's Witnesses were classically in that sense martyrs
and tragic figures. They understood precisely why they suffered and
they had the capacity to imagine enduring it and outlasting it.
The
interesting thing is that people who study suffering say that the
person who understands why he suffers and for what he suffers can
endure a greater amount of suffering without it destroying their self
and their soul.
So
Jehovah's Witnesses have a higher rate of survival than other victim
groups in the camps. They had a higher level of solidarity and they
had a higher level of being able to maintain their own peculiar
spiritual integrity; and actually their own unique spiritual
integrity. Peculiar is to give it a pejorative description, they had
an easier time retaining their own unique spiritual integrity,
something that was denied to other victim groups because they lacked
the mechanisms of solidarity; most particularly for example the
German male homosexuals who died in far greater percentages among the
number of incarcerations. The number of incarcerations were somewhat
comparable to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Very
often in the camps there was the war of all against all. People
survived in part because human beings offered assistance to one
another that kept people from going down to the deepest level of
savagery. Women's experience differs from men in that women report
that they had the equivalent of camp sisters; that they established a
close relationship with somebody else that enabled them to overcome
at least some of the brutality of it all.
Jehovah's
Witnesses had group solidarity and they had a greater sense of
allegiance, one to another and a greater sense of assistance one to
another; they also offered assistance to other prisoners at least in
the recollection of survivors in their memoirs; they offered
assistance to one another with a greater frequency and they succumbed
less to the brutality of the camps than other groups. If you read
survivors memoirs you're impressed with the way in which Jehovah's
Witnesses retain their integrity.
One
survivor said of Auschwitz: “If you cried you died”. If you
expressed feelings. Feelings were dangerous. Most people who went
through the camp experience became numb and it was only later that
they could return to absolutely feeling and they could return to the
full sense of normalcy in terms of values or anything else.
Anybody
who was unprepared to organize,
which is a combination of – to trade – to steal – to arrange –
to negotiate; anybody who was unprepared to organize
had a very difficult chance of survival; so that you had to break the
system in order to survive, especially if you were Jewish because the
system wanted to kill you, it wanted to destroy you, it wanted you
not to exist.
Remember
the other reason Jehovah's Witnesses could retain their integrity is
they weren't under a death sentence; they merely had to endure the
suffering. Jews were under a death sentence.
In
the camps the Nazis understood Jehovah's Witnesses behaved with a
peculiar integrity and they were so deeply pacifistic that they could
serve as barbers to the SS; and I don't agree with their
pacifism but I have to acknowledge it and I have to make note of it.
If I had the opportunity to have a razor to the neck of a SS officer
the temptation to cut that neck and to slice him into smithereens
would be too great to resist.
I
can truly say that I admire the religious integrity of the Jehovah's
Witnesses who behaved with integrity, who refused to commit idolatry
and a who refused to violate the integrity of their faith even before
the Nazis by signing a document.
I
think that was wrong because I think it accorded the Nazis an
authority and a dignity that they had completely violated, just as I
think that their pacifism was wrong because the Nazis were unworthy
of pacifism; they could only be defeated by force and if there were
only pacifism then the Nazis would still be in power. Only force
defeated them, that is one of the reasons I cannot be a pacifist and
one of the reasons I regard pacifism as an inappropriate religious
choice, but one certainly has to make note of it.
It
appears as if the leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses, at the beginning
of the Nazi regime tried to find a neutral space; We're not Jews,
were not pro-Jewish, they didn't say we're not anti-Jewish, but they
said we're not Jews, we're not pro-Jewish; we have no challenge to
offer you; that's not our world. Your world is not our world; leave us
in this neutral space. Later on as the nation state Nazism became all
pervasive there was no neutral space.
If
you weren't part of it; if you weren't opposing Nazism you then were
conforming to it and that didn't allow for neutrality. And I'm not
sure Jehovah's Witnesses were ever enormously embracive of Jews, but
they were enormously dissonant from the Nazi conformity; and
therefore they didn't hate Jews with the vehemence that the rest of
German society manifested.
Jehovah's
witnesses were consistently anti-idolatrous; most Christian groups
tried to find a means of accommodation and many Christian groups
essentially succumbed to the cultural conformity, both Roman Catholic
and Protestant groups ended up going along and some very
enthusiastically so. Jehovah's Witnesses ultimately resisted Nazism
once they understood that there was no neutral space that could be
found in that society.
I
[collaborated]
with
a very distinguished Christian colleague of mine John Roth on a book
called “The Holocaust religious and philosophical implications”.
The
clearest religious implication of the Jehovah's Witnesses is that if
one takes God seriously and scorns idolatry then one could not be a
Nazi, and if one reveres God then one must resist Nazism. Same cannot
be said for other groups that succumbed to idolatry. Same cannot be
said for other Christian groups that succumbed to idolatry.
I'm
less interested in keeping a scorecard, good guys - bad guys than I am
observing historical phenomenon, and the historical phenomenon I
observe with Jehovah's Witnesses as a group who understood why they
suffered, who had a choice as to whether to suffer or not, who lived
with their integrity. If others want to laud that they may. I want to
note that and I guess I do believe that it was laudatory.
Joseph
is again a unique character. There are not many people who underwent
a conversionary experience. I
am a religious Jew, I want Jews to remain Jews. I think Judaism is
correct and it is a correct and appropriate path; and is the correct
and appropriate path for Jews, so I can only look at the story and
observe what happened, and I can look at the story and observe what
happened; and certainly some people in camp situations also undergo
what is called the Stockholm syndrome in which you begin to mimic
your captors and you sort of incarnate their values and you lose any
sense of your own humanity and decency.
What
Joseph did was to essentially look for other role models and what he
did was to essentially adopt the Jehovah's Witnesses as role models
of people who lived with integrity. Jews who abandon their faith are
regarded by many/most Jews as traitors. You have joined the other
side. Now I can look at the circumstances in which he converted and
say - okay those are extraordinary conditions and people respond to
extraordinary conditions in unusual ways, but most Jews including
myself feel that those who have abandoned our faith and embraced
another faith are traitors. Certainly light years less traitorous
than for example Jews becoming Nazis.
Most
Jews learned how to rebuild from the ashes and they followed the
tradition of the great Hasidic
master who said: "Nothing is as whole as a heart that has been
broken."
Joseph
chose an alternate path and what he did was to choose the path that
within the camps represented to him the group that retained their
integrity. Again if one could argue objectively one can say okay they
retain their integrity because they merely had to endure this, they
weren't going to be destroyed by the system if they could retain
themselves intact, but the experience of a 16-year-old, a
15-year-old, a 17-year-old is not the experience of objective history
its the experience of a subjective mind living through an event.
Evangelizing
is not necessarily anti-Semitic its anti-Judaic because of you're
trying to say to a Jew, your faith is not adequate and mine is
better, that's anti-Judaic; so you know when I have Jehovah's
Witnesses come to my door and sometimes we have African-American
Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door [and] I said: "The possibly of me
becoming a Jehovah's Witnesses is roughly the equivalent of you
becoming white."
I
am who I am, I live with my own integrity, I believe in my traditions, I embrace my faith; I cherish my own history and my own values. So
the fact that somebody wants to proclaim their faith that's their
prerogative but to begin to say that my faith is inadequate is a
somewhat insulting and usually brings up cackles from the Jews and
rightfully so. I find my faith fully adequate. I think I can live
with integrity with God and walk humbly with history.
If
you for example say that the Jew can live with integrity with his God
and that God spoke to the Jews; and if you then said that God
furthermore spoke on to Christians with a new covenant, a new
Testament, a new view, then you could be theologically consistent, which says to the people to whom the first word of God was spoken: It
endures and continues and they should take it forward; To the people
in whom the word of God came for the second time they can live with
that word but they need not say that Judaism itself has no more
function to perform.
So
as a Jew; as a religious Jew when somebody says your tradition has
fulfilled all that it has to do and has completed its mission and has
no raison d'être and mine is better; I find that hubris and I find
that offensive.
In
the ideal world there should be room for a Jew and Jehovah's Witness
experience to coexist because they shared a universe in common. In
the real world there are plenty of barriers to be overcome and plenty of
tensions that have to be grappled with.
I
believe the divisions can be bridged and divisions can be healed, but
I don't believe it is ever easy or its ever simple and even in
nuclear family were everybody is of the same religion as one another
there can be great divisions; and those divisions may have nothing to
do with anything religious and everything to do with the dynamics the
family; who feels embraced; who feels scorned. I mean that’s what
half the comedy on television is about.
Auschwitz
displayed the Jehovah's Witnesses prominently because it was an
affirmative action programme. For many years they had avoided it; for
many years they had not emphasised it and consequently they felt it
was time to do something to make up for all the years in which they
have essentially ignored it; and museums always have something called
a special exhibition which comes front and centre and then after the
special exhibition is completed it goes back and recedes.
Auschwitz
now has a special exhibition on the gypsies within Auschwitz who were
murdered like the Jews; even murdered in gas Chambers; smaller
numbers, [a] less totally absorbing process; so I would dare say that it
was a special exhibit. In museum terms it was a special exhibition, in
contemporary political terms it was an affirmative action to make up
for previously ignoring the plight of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Why
care? Because the people who run the Memorial Museum in Auschwitz
have an obligation to tell the story of Auschwitz. Jehovah's
Witnesses are part of the story of Auschwitz. They are not the
dominant story, they are not the central story, but they are part of
that story. Why care? Because you care for the place and care for the
integrity of its history.
Look
Jehovah's Witnesses were consistent; they refused to serve in the
German army; they refused to serve in the American army. They refused to
swear allegiance to the Nazi state; they refused to swear allegiance
to the American state. Dissent is important to Jehovah's Witnesses
because it represents the fullness of their faith; and the dissent is
important to those of us who are not Jehovah's Witnesses because it represents the nature of a religious people that remind us
that the state, even the great United States of America is a human
rather than a divine instrument, with all the frailties of human
instrumentality.
Most
of us in the United States find the only interaction we have with
Jehovah's Witnesses is when somebody comes to our door. What I would
like people to see when that person comes to their door to
proselytize
them; is to, even as you're rejecting the proselytization, and I can
tell you I always reject the proselytization; I was born a Jew; I
live as a Jew; and I will die a Jew; but even then I want us to look
at that moment and understand that the person before us is acting out
of an integrity that is uniquely their own, and that's a part of
their tradition...and the integrity of that tradition was tested by
fire.
END OF INTERVIEW
