Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Regime: 1933-1945

"We must be grateful for this book, deeply grateful. In essay after essay we read of the fate of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi concentration camps. Some of the essays tell large stories. The other essays tell small stories of a few individuals - stories that illuminate the whole. Part of this work addresses the situation of the Witnesses in Germany... Jews were victimized not because of what they did, nor because of what they were. They were targeted for destruction because of what their grandparents were…

Alone of all the groups targeted by the Nazis, the Jehovah's Witnesses were victimized because of what they refused to do. They would not enlist in the army, undertake air raid drills, stop meeting or proselytizing. They would not utter the words ‘Heil Hitler.’ Their dissent was irksome, disciplined and systematic... Jews had no choice. Jehovah's Witnesses did. As such, they are martyrs in the traditional sense of the term - those prepared to suffer and even to die for the choice of their faith."

—From the Preface by Michael Berenbaum, Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of the Holocaust, Richard Stockton College