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Left: Brother Wolfram Slupina displays a jacket worn by one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in a concentration camp. Right: The memorial plaque at the Flossenbürg site

MAY 17, 2023
GERMANY

Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Unveils Plaque Honoring Jehovah’s Witnesses

Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Unveils Plaque Honoring Jehovah’s Witnesses

On April 22, 2023, the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial in Bavaria, Germany, unveiled a plaque memorializing Jehovah’s Witnesses who died while imprisoned there. Flossenbürg is the ninth concentration camp memorial site to recognize Jehovah’s Witnesses with a memorial plaque.

Over 100 of Jehovah’s Witnesses were imprisoned in Flossenbürg and its satellite camps. Some of their family members attended the ceremony. One brother in attendance commented that “being at the place of remembrance, where unimaginably bad things were committed, was very sad. However, reflecting on the faithfulness of our brothers made it both a joyful and a dignified occasion.”

Professor Jörg Skriebeleit, director of the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, explained that “Jehovah’s Witnesses were the first religious community to be banned after the [Nazi] seizure of power in March 1933.” In a brief speech, he noted that “faith gave [the Witnesses] strength and power while in the concentration camp . . . not only to survive for themselves but to pass [that strength] on to others who did not share their beliefs.”

The audience listens attentively during the unveiling ceremony in Bavaria, Germany. Inset: Sister Judith Ribic, whose father was imprisoned at the Flossenbürg camp, and Professor Skriebeleit unveil the plaque

Brother Wolfram Slupina, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany, also addressed the audience. He told them: “It is of concern to us all that the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses as a victim group is not forgotten, the history of people who were willing to follow their conscience during Germany’s darkest times.”

We are confident that our faithful brothers and sisters who faced persecution and even death in the concentration camps are in God’s “book of remembrance.”—Malachi 3:16.