Admin l Wednesday, August 23, 2017
SELTERS, Germany—Techelsberg manucipality, Austria has honoured 31 members of Jehovah’s Witnesses who were victims of the Nazi regime in Germany.
They were honoured on the morning of May 19, 2017 at a ceremony in remembrance of Jehovah’s Witnesses who were executed or imprisoned in concentration camps by the Nazis. A memorial plaque was unveiled that acknowledged a total of 31 Witnesses as “victims of National Socialism in Techelsberg and its surroundings.”
The program began with 60 vocalists singing “Forward, You Witnesses!” acappella. The song, a version of which is still periodically sung during worship services held by Witnesses around the world, was originally composed in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp by Erich Frost, a Witness imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II.
Following the musical introduction, guest speakers Mr. Johann Koban (mayor of Techelsberg), Mr. Peter Stocker (grandson of one of the Techelsberg victims, Gregor Wohlfahrt, Sr.), Prof. Peter Gstettner, Prof. Vinzenz Jobst, and Dr. Peter Kaiser (state governor) addressed an estimated 350 in attendance. The Austrian news stations ORF 2 and ORF Kärnten covered the event along with several local newspapers.
“During World War II, 212 of the 550 Witnesses in Austria were sent to concentration camps, mistakenly viewed as a threat to Germany’s National Socialist regime, both for their neutral political stand and for their refusal to support war efforts”, the JWs said on their wensite.
In the concentration camps, Jehovah’s Witnesses were forced to wear purple triangles on their uniforms for identification. “A total of 154 Austrian Witnesses died in the Holocaust”.
Prior to the commemoration, the five Witnesses from Techelsberg who were executed by the Nazis (Johann Stossier, Anton Uran, Gregor Wohlfahrt, Sr., Gregor Wohlfahrt, Jr., and Willibald Wohlfahrt) were listed on a war memorial as “missing persons,” a historical inaccuracy.
Prof. Gstettner explained the significance of the plaque: “This brings the historical truth visibly to the fore, now in the right place as a lasting memory to those people, who with incredible courage, and with the whole truthfulness of their faith, testified that steadfastness in resistance to the demands of an inhuman system is morally justified and, in the end, remains victorious.”
The plaque quotes a poem written by Franz Wohlfahrt and lists the five Witnesses from Techelsberg who were originally listed on a war memorial as “missing persons.”
Johann Zimmermann, spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Austria, states: “We appreciate events like this that recognize the courage and faith of Jehovah’s Witnesses in spite of vicious persecution. We hope that this event has served as a sobering reminder of the cruelty that can result when a minority group is erroneously perceived as a pernicious threat to the State.”
Among the survivors of the Nazi regime from Techelsberg was Franz Wohlfahrt (January 18, 1920 – December 12, 2009), who saw a total of 15 members of his family arrested because they were Witnesses.
“Seven of them were executed, the majority by guillotine. One was gassed, and the others died in concentration camps and Gestapo jails,” he stated in a 1993 interview at the age of 73.
“Almost every day [in the concentration camp] I was reminded by the guards that if Germany lost the war, they still would have enough ammunition to execute me.”
His father, Gregor, younger brothers, Gregor Jr., and Willibald, are three of the five victims listed on the plaque along with Johann Stossier and Anton Uran. The plaque in Techelsberg features a partial quote from a poem written by Franz. Assuming his execution was imminent, after learning that his father and brother were executed, he wrote the poem in 1944 in the Rollwald concentration camp:
“In my faith, I will always stand firm, . . . On my own I could never remain. With my life, I will even stand firm, And as I my last breath confer, You should with that dying gasp hear: I stand firm . . . “,he wrote.
