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Jehovah's Witnesses suffered religious persecution in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 after refusing to perform military service, join Nazi organizations, or give allegiance to the Hitler regime. An estimated 10,000 Witnesses were sent to Nazi concentration camps. It is estimated that between 2,000 and 5,000 died in custody, including 250 who were executed.[1] They were the first Christian denomination banned by the Nazi government and the most extensively and intensively persecuted.[2]
Unlike Jews and Romani, who were persecuted on the basis of their race, Jehovah's Witnesses could escape persecution and personal harm by renouncing their religious beliefs by signing a document indicating renunciation of their faith, submission to state authority, and support of the German military.[3] Historian Sybil Milton concludes that "their courage and defiance in the face of torture and death punctures the myth of a monolithic Nazi state ruling over docile and submissive subjects."[4]
Despite early attempts to demonstrate shared goals with the National Socialist regime,[5][6] the group came under increasing public and governmental persecution from 1933, with many expelled from jobs and schools, deprived of income, and suffering beatings and imprisonment. Historians are divided over whether the Nazis intended to exterminate them, but several authors have claimed the Witnesses' outspoken condemnation of the Nazis contributed to their level of suffering.
- ^ "Jehovah's Witnesses in the Holocaust". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved 2023-08-28.
- ^ Garbe, Detlef (2008). Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 100, 102, 514. ISBN 978-0-299-20794-6.
- ^ Berenbaum, Michael. "Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi-Regime".
- ^ Laqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor (2001). The Holocaust encyclopedia. Yale University Press. pp. 346–50. ISBN 978-0-300-08432-0. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
- ^ Garbe 2008, pp. 90–91.
- ^ Watch Tower Society. "Declaration of Facts" (June 1933) as quoted in Awake!, July 8, 1998, p. 14: "A careful examination of our books and literature will disclose the fact that the very high ideals held and promulgated by the present national government are set forth in and endorsed and strongly emphasized in our publications, and show that Jehovah God will see to it that these high ideals in due time will be attained by all persons who love righteousness."