Beyond Revisionism - Historical Hubris and the WatchTower Society
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Where other groups have attempted to cover-up and rewrite their histories
during Nazi times, the Watchtower Society has had much greater success in
such endeavours - even securing for themselves a place in the US National
Holocaust Museum, a source of much pride for their followers. An astonishing
example of their ability to reverse history is displayed in this 1995 article.

"The Holocaust - Who Spoke Out?" - Awake! August 22nd, 1995
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"One Voice in the Midst of Silence"
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Fifty years ago a monster was slain. When the world finally drew aside the 
curtain to look on the fallen Third Reich, the ghastly sight was too much 
of a nightmare to comprehend. Soldiers and civilians alike could only stare 
in silent horror at the gruesome remains of a monstrous killing machine.

Earlier this year thousands celebrated the 50th anniversary of the liberation 
of the concentration camps by quietly tramping through their desolate grounds. 
They struggled to fathom the enormity of the crime. Why, some 1,500,000 people 
had been killed in the death camp at Auschwitz alone! It was a time for silence, 
a time to reflect on man's inhumanity to man. Haunting questions echoed in the 
cold ovens, in the empty barracks, across the undisturbed mountains of 
plundered shoes.

Today there is horror; there is outrage. The Holocaust, during which several 
million were systematically murdered, reveals what a monstrous evil Nazism was. 
But what about then? Who spoke out? Who did not?

For many, their first knowledge of the mass slayings came only at the close of 
World War II. The book Fifty Years Ago --Revolt Amid the Darkness explains: "The 
still photographs and newsreel films of the killing centers and camps liberated 
by the Allies in 1944 and 1945 first brought the shocking reality to the broad 
public, especially in the west."

Yet, even before the death camps were set up, a voice was proclaiming the 
dangers of Nazism, through Awake!, the magazine you hold in your hands. It was 
first known as The Golden Age and was renamed Consolation in 1937. Beginning in 
1929, these magazines, published by Jehovah's Witnesses, boldly warned of the 
perils of Nazism, living up to the proclamation on the cover, "A Journal of Fact, 
Hope and Courage."

"How can one remain silent," asked Consolation in 1939, "about the horrors of 
a land where, as in Germany, 40,000 innocent persons are arrested at one time; 
where 70 of them were executed in a single night in one prison;...where all homes, 
institutes and hospitals for the aged, the poor, and the helpless, and all 
orphanages for the children, are destroyed?"

How, indeed, could one remain silent? While the world in general was unaware or 
skeptical of the horrific reports trickling out of Germany and occupied lands, 
Jehovah's Witnesses could not keep quiet. They knew firsthand the cruelties of 
the Nazi regime,and they were not afraid to speak out. 

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"The Evils of Nazism Exposed" 
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In spite of the evident hostility of the Hitler regime, Jehovah's Witnesses 
organized a convention in Berlin, Germany, on June 25,1933. Some 7,000 persons 
assembled. The Witnesses publicly made their intentions clear: "Our organization 
is not political in any sense. We only insist on teaching the Word of Jehovah God 
to the people, and that without hindrance."

Thus Jehovah's Witnesses made a good-faith effort to state their case. What were 
the consequences?

(Subheading) The Attack Begins

The immovable neutral position of the Witnesses, along with their loyalty to 
God's Kingdom, was unacceptable to the Hitler government. The Nazis did not intend 
to tolerate any refusal to support their ideology.
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(omitted from the above article is the following continuation of the above statement:

"The greatest and the most oppressive empire on earth is the Anglo-American empire. 
By that is meant the British Empire, of which the United States of America forms a 
part. It has been the commercial Jews of the British-American empire that have built 
up and carried on Big Business as a means of exploiting and oppressing the peoples 
of many nations."

"The present government of Germany has declared emphatically against Big Business 
oppressors and in opposition to the wrongful religious influence in the political 
affairs of the nation. Such is exactly our position; and we further state in our 
literature the reason for the existence of oppressive Big Business and the 
wrongful political religious influence, because the Holy Scriptures plainly declare 
that these oppressive instruments proceed from the Devil, and that the complete 
relief therefrom if God's Kingdom under Christ.")


"Why the Churches Kept Silent"
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"True, a few courageous individuals from the Catholic, Protestant, and various other 
religions stood up against the Nazi State. But even as some of them paid with their 
lives, their spiritual leaders, who claimed to serve God, were serving as puppets 
of the Third Reich."

(The above naturally makes no reference to the following, as told in these
quotes from "Faith and the Fatherland" by Thomas McGovern:-

"From the beginning the Catholic Church was one of the main targets of 
Hitler's policy of annihilation; the totalitarian aims of National
Socialism would not tolerate any opposition or allow any other organization
to compete for the loyalty of the German people. ..."

"In Dachau along, no fewer than 2,771 priest were imprisoned, of whom at 
least 1,000 died from hunger, disease or ill-treatment. Acts of brutality, 
torture and murder were commonplace in these camps, yet they were the
context of daily acts of heroism, as in the case of Maximillian Kolbe in 
Auschwitz, or the secret and daring ordination in Dachau of Karl Leisner, 
the young seminarian from Munich ..."

"No less than 4,000 priests were put to death during these years, either 
as "political sabateurs," or after incarceration in concentration camps, 
by hanging, starvation, mishandling, lack of medical aid, or as victims of 
medical experiments including euthanasia. It is a story of courageous and 
heroic resistance agains the overwhelming power of a police state." )

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