In July 1948, in the German city of Kassel, Jehovah’s Witnesses held what was the largest gathering of Witnesses in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. Jehovah’s Witnesses held an exhibition in Kassel on the 70th anniversary of that convention. Over the 12 days of the exhibition, more than 2,000 people attended. The event was also covered by a local German television station and several local newspapers.

The historical Kassel convention had a peak attendance of 23,150 people, including 1,200 who were baptized. Notably, most of the speakers and many attendees were concentration camp survivors. In acknowledgment of this, the exhibition’s opening ceremony included a speech from the director of the Breitenau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Dr. Gunnar Richter, who explained how Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered under the Nazi regime.

The exhibition displayed photographs illustrating how Kassel was nearly destroyed in the hostilities of World War II. When our brothers organized the convention, the authorities could only make available a meadow pockmarked with large bomb craters. Brother Kurt Rex, who was present for the convention, described the almost four weeks of labor required to prepare the site: “The work was physically very demanding. We first had to use buckets to get rid of the water that had filled the bomb craters. Only after this was it possible to begin with the real work and fill the craters with stones and rubble from the destroyed houses in the neighborhood. Leveling the ground was also hard manual labor, because we did not have any access to large machines or instruments for leveling. Since it was raining all the time, we were constantly wet.” Despite incessant rainfall, our brothers carted some 10,000 cubic meters (13,080 cu yd) of stones and rubble.

In his opening address for the exhibition, Wolfram Slupina, a representative from the branch office of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Germany, described the spirit that impelled the brothers and sisters as they prepared for the convention: “After liberation from the concentration camps, they did not pity themselves or harbor feelings of revenge. . . . Their regained freedom literally spurred them on.”

In a speech to the exhibition audience, city councilor and representative of the municipal administration of Kassel, Esther Kalveram, explained: “This convention was not only a remarkable event for Jehovah’s Witnesses but for the city of Kassel as well.”

The 1948 Kassel convention and the 2018 exhibition of its 70th anniversary bear testimony to the determination of Jehovah’s people to gather together to receive Bible education despite immense obstacles.—Psalm 35:18.