Treatment of Minority Groups in Nazi Germany By: Keira Keenan, Michael Kaminicki, & Michael Jeziorski “The Jehovah's Witnesses are unique because they could have avoided their fate, but in the face of torture and death, they chose not to, and stood by their principles.” —Karen Jensen-Germaine, Senior Research at Shoa

Jehovah’s Witness There were 25,000-30,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany. The Nazis targeted Witnesses because they were unwilling to accept the authority of the state and because they were opposed to war and organized government in matters of conscience. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned when the Nazi’s came to power. The Gestapo compiled a registry of Jehovah's Witnesses. Gestapo agents infiltrated Bible study meetings and prevented the distribution of printed materials, which in the eyes of the Nazis were subversive. Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to do the Nazi salute, adorn their homes with Nazi flags, and allow their children to join the Hitler Youth. When Germany reintroduced compulsory military service in March 1935, the Witnesses refused to be drafted or perform military-related work. Approximately 250 were executed for their refusal to serve in the military. Eventually, 10,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were put in prisons and concentration camps. In camps, Jehovah's Witnesses were marked by purple triangular patches. Even in the camps, they continued to meet, pray, and seek converts. They were sustained by the support they gave each other and by their belief that their suffering was part of their work for God. In the Buchenwald concentration camp, they set up an underground printing press and distributed religious tracts. Individual Witnesses astounded guards with their refusal to conform to military-type routines like roll call. At the same time, camp authorities considered Witnesses to be relatively trustworthy because they refused to escape or physically resist their guards. For this reason, Nazi camp officers and guards often used Witnesses as domestic servants.

Historiography Detlev Garbe Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich Garbe argues that while the population of Jehovah’s Witnesses was minimal, the religious order played a significant role in undermining the efforts of the Nazi regime. The Gestapo spent an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to suppress the Jehovah’s Witnesses. “… the courage of conviction and the (under the circumstances) recklessness of the numerically rather insignificant religious community occupied surprisingly large circles: at times, the highest legal, police, and SS organs were occupied with the ‘Bible Students’ Question’…”