The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis: Persecution, Deportation, and Murder, 1933-1945

by Michel Reynaud, Sylvie Graffard, Michael Berenbaum director, Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University (Introduction), James A. Moorhouse (Translator)

Overview

This is the remarkable story of German and European Jehovah's Witnesses persecuted by the Nazis, who could have avoided persecution by simply renouncing their faith yet who refused in the majority of cases, instead continuing in their worship and criticism of Hitler's regime.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815410768
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	05/29/2001
Edition description:	1ST COOPER
Pages:	318
Sales rank:	986,921
Product dimensions:	5.82(w) x 8.72(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Michel Reynaud is the founder of the French publishing company, Editions Tiresias and a scholar in the field of World War II deportations. Sylvie Graffard is a writer and a scholar who has been working in the study of deportation since 1960. They both live in Paris. Michael Berenbaum, the president of the Survivors of Shoah Visual Foundation, lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	From a Letter from Thomas Mann	xiii
	From a Letter from Germaine Tillion	xv
	Note to Readers	xvii
	Symbols of Persecution	xix
	Chronology	xxi
1.	The Nazi Takeover	1
2.	The Enemy Identified	11
3.	If We Are Ready to Answer "Yes"	17
4.	Do Not Submit to the Powers of Man	21
5.	The Assembly at Basel	25
6.	Survival	29
7.	The "Negroes" in Europe	33
8.	Der Anstreicher	41
9.	You Are Accused of Ten Thousand Crimes: You Know Nothing	45
10.	"Alle Jugend dem Fuhrer"	49
11.	A Lynching of Consciences	55
12.	Families Destroyed	59
13.	The Church and the State	63
14.	1937, the Year of "Ordinary" Oppression	69
15.	The Concentration Camps	79
16.	The Invasion of Austria and the Plebiscite	85
17.	Austrians in the Spiral of Oppression	91
18.	While France Is Armed ...	99
19.	II Duce's Opponents	109
20.	The Daily Horror	117
21.	A "Plague" Sweeps across Europe	123
22.	Reality in the Camps	131
23.	Two Children of Alsace-Lorraine	135
24.	Planet Ash	141
25.	German Itineraries	145
26.	A Regime of Terror	151
27.	Rejection of War Labors	155
28.	Joseph Hisiger	159
29.	Arthur Winkler	163
30.	Corporal Punishments	167
31.	But What Is Scripture?	171
32.	They That Have Power to Hurt	175
33.	The Hell of Auschwitz	179
34.	The SS's Kalfaktorinnen and Dienstmadchen	183
35.	The Incredible Will for Conversion	187
36.	The Arnold Family	191
37.	A Ten-Year-Old in the Camps of Silesia	197
38.	Haftling Louis Piechota	203
39.	Voyage in the Night	207
40.	A Gaullist Resister in Dachau	215
41.	January 1945: The Red Army Arrives at Auschwitz	223
42.	The Truth Will Have the Last Word	227
43.	Evacuation of the Camps	231
44.	Forgotten Ones	241
	The Declaration Renouncing Beliefs	245
	Glossary	247
	Bibliography	255
	Index	271

Editorial Reviews

This is a book that had to be written. It is most compelling in subject matter and style, is long overdue and is the first of its kind.

The Virginian-Pilot - Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman

Reynaud and Graffard have done admirable research in collecting information about the Witnesses, and in interviewing the few surviving members of the sect who were in the camps…. [The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis] is the most informed account of the persecution of the Witnesses that we have

New York Review of Books - Istvan Deak

Personal stories of individual suffering and triumph help Reynaud and Graffard to make this vital chapter of Holocaust history breathe.

Foreword Reviews - Kristin Putchinski

This is a book that had to be written. It is most compelling in subject matter and style, is long overdue and is the first of its kind.--Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman "The Virginian-Pilot "

Personal stories of individual suffering and triumph help Reynaud and Graffard to make this vital chapter of Holocaust history breathe.--Kristin Putchinski "Foreword Reviews "

Reynaud and Graffard have done admirable research in collecting information about the Witnesses, and in interviewing the few surviving members of the sect who were in the camps.... [The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis] is the most informed account of the persecution of the Witnesses that we have--Istvan Deak "The New York Review Of Books "

From the Publisher

Reynaud and Graffard have done admirable research in collecting information about the Witnesses, and in interviewing the few surviving members of the sect who were in the camps…. [The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis] is the most informed account of the persecution of the Witnesses that we have

The New York Review Of Books - Istvan Deak

This is a book that had to be written. It is most compelling in subject matter and style, is long overdue and is the first of its kind.
— Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman

The Virginian-Pilot

Reynaud and Graffard have done admirable research in collecting information about the Witnesses, and in interviewing the few surviving members of the sect who were in the camps…. [The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Nazis] is the most informed account of the persecution of the Witnesses that we have
— Istvan Deak

The New York Review Of Books

Personal stories of individual suffering and triumph help Reynaud and Graffard to make this vital chapter of Holocaust history breathe.
— Kristin Putchinski

ForeWord Reviews

Personal stories of individual suffering and triumph help Reynaud and Graffard to make this vital chapter of Holocaust history breathe.
— Kristin Putchinski

Foreword Reviews