France

France has over 212,000 square miles (550,000 km²) of territory, being the largest country in Europe, with the exception of the Soviet Union. The French are in the habit of calling their country the “hexagon” (six-sided figure). You can see why by examining the accompanying map of France. The country is blessed with fine beaches along the English Channel and the Atlantic and Mediterranean seacoasts, and with the majestic, snowcapped mountains of the Alps and the Pyrenees.

France is a republic that is divided into 96 administrative departments and includes the Mediterranean island of Corsica. The French population of over 53 million is a mixture of various types reflecting their distant ancestors: Mediterraneans, Celts, Germans and Latins. French is the language spoken today by all Frenchmen, although in what used to be Alsace-Lorraine the older folk still speak German or a local German dialect. Polish is spoken by many of the miners who came to France from Poland after the first world war. There are also a great number of Italians and Algerians. Recently many thousands of Spanish and Portuguese workers have come to France, which means that their languages can often be heard throughout the country.

On the whole, France is a Catholic country, the French Protestant community having been greatly diminished by the persecutions of the 16th and 17th centuries. However, commenting on the religious situation in France, the Encyclopœdia Britannica states:

 “A phenomenon common to all western countries but evident in France to a marked degree is the failing away of the mass of the people from the religious groups. It is associated with the growth of industrialization and urbanization. While rural communities in general remain more attached of the traditional faith, the townspeople, particularly in suburban districts, are in process of de-Christianization.”

RUSSELL LAYS THE GROUNDWORK

The activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France dates back to the end of the 19th century. In 1891 the Watch Tower Society’s president, Charles T. Russell, visited Paris and recorded his impressions of the French field in the November 1891 issue of Zion’s Watch Tower: “The French are rapidly turning to open infidelity, although many still are blinded by gross Romish superstition.”

However, this unfavorable impression did not prevent Brother Russell from having the Studies in the Scriptures translated into French. He also made arrangements for various tracts and pamphlets to be translated into French, thus laying the groundwork for future preaching of the good news in France.

AN OBSCURE SWISS WOODCUTTER

Sometime in the 1890’s, an obscure Swiss woodcutter named Adolphe Weber traveled to the United States. There, in Pittsburgh, he worked for Brother Russell as a gardener and obtained a deep knowledge of the Scriptures from him. After a time, Weber offered to return to Europe to evangelize the French-speaking countries. Brother Russell eventually accepted his proposition and agreed to finance the preaching work in French-speaking Europe.

 Adolphe Weber was a simple man of peasantlike appearance. But, at the same time, he was a devout, mature Christian who knew well the English, French and German languages. Back in Switzerland, he inserted advertisements in French-language religious newspapers and magazines for Volume I of Studies in the Scriptures and booklets written by Brother Russell.

FIRST SIGNS OF INTEREST

On August 12, 1900, a Frenchman named Elie Thérond, living in a little place called Beauvène in central France responded to the advertisement and ordered the Bible literature. Elie recognized the ring of the truth and soon began spreading the message himself. Later, in 1905, his home became the first depot for filling orders of Watch Tower literature in France.

In 1901 Jean-Baptiste Thilmant, a grocer living in a Belgian mining village near Charleroi, also read one of Brother Weber’s advertisements and ordered Bible literature. By 1902 he organized in his home a small group of Bible students. This group later carried the truth into northern France, as we shall soon see.

In 1903 Brother Russell visited Europe again and made arrangements with Brother Weber to publish a French edition of Zion’s Watch Tower. It started as an eight-page quarterly edition, the first issue dated October 1903. In January 1904, it became a monthly periodical.

“CULTIVATING” FRENCH SOIL

As a result of Brother Weber’s advertising campaign in the press, more and more people were ordering and studying the Society’s Bible literature. During the summer, Weber would work in  Switzerland as a woodcutter and gardener, distributing tracts and preaching among the French-speaking Swiss people. Then he would set off on long trips visiting people in France and Belgium who had ordered literature or had subscribed for the Watch Tower. During his travels he did gardening and odd jobs to earn his keep. As a consequence of Brother Weber’s devoted service, the truth began to spread in different parts of France.

In 1904, Brother Weber visited the Thilmant family near Charleroi, Belgium. He showed them how to distribute tracts outside Protestant churches, and encouraged them to extend their activities into northern France. Thus, in August 1904, Thilmant and his young daughter Joséphine traveled by train to the town of Denain in the mining region of northern France, where they distributed tracts and Watch Tower magazines outside the Baptist church. Several members of this church read the literature with interest and subscribed for the Watch Tower. These families soon started putting awkward questions to their Baptist minister, who finally told them not to come to his church anymore. They decided to meet together to study the Bible in the home of Jules Lequime, in Haveluy, near Denain. Incidentally, the children and grandchildren of these families in Denain​—the Lequimes, Vaucamps and Polards—​are still active Witnesses, two of the grandsons at present serving as circuit overseers in France.

In 1906, Brother Weber visited this group in Denain and helped them to get organized. The Denain Congregation soon began distributing tracts outside the Protestant church in the nearby town of Sin-le-Noble. In time, several families there  became interested in the truth, including the Palmaert family. Brother Weber organized them into a group that met in the home of Victor Jupin, who died on November 15, 1969, after having served Jehovah faithfully for some 60 years.

The Baptist minister in Denain still nurtured hopes that those who had become Bible Students would eventually return to the Baptist fold. He thought to himself: ‘Wait until one of them dies or wishes to get married! Then they will come running to me to conduct the service.’ His hopes were dashed first in 1906, when a brother died, and again in 1907, when two of the Lequime daughters got married. Brothers from the local congregation of Bible Students handled the services.

Meanwhile, the work was still progressing farther south. The year 1907 saw a schoolteacher near Rennes distributing Volume I of Studies in the Scriptures and Watch Tower magazines in Catholic Brittany. By that time, three literature depots were operating in France, and subscriptions for the French Watch Tower could be sent to any of these three addresses. Toward the end of 1907 an “Appeal for Volunteers” was published in the French Watch Tower.

During 1908 and 1909, the Denain and Sin-le-Noble congregations preached in surrounding territory and began forming study groups in other towns of northern France, such as in Lens and Auchel in the Pas-de-Calais Department,

EARLY PILGRIM VISITS

From December 1908 to February 1909, Weber made pilgrim visits to groups and isolated brothers in 20 departments or administrative districts all over France, including such large towns as Besançon,  Grenoble, Valence, Bordeaux, Nantes, Rennes, Angers, Paris and Nancy. At this time, too, the truth began to penetrate the German-speaking region of Alsace-Lorraine. A brother Schutz was active in the town of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, and other Bible Students in the small town of Petersbach were distributing the publication Food for Thinking Christians in the German language.

In December 1909 and January 1910, three pilgrim brothers, A. Meyer, S. Seguier and Adolphe Weber, visited 34 towns in France and held meetings in many of them, including Roubaix, a large textile manufacturing town in the north of France, where a congregation was organized. The longest stopover was in Paris, from December 18 to 20, 1909, which indicates that interest was being developed by this time in the French capital. This same year, the French Watch Tower changed its name from Le Phare de la Tour de Sion (literally The Lighthouse of Zion’s Tower) to La Tour de Garde (The Watch Tower), the name by which it is still known today.

In 1910, the first issue in French of the “People’s Pulpit” tracts was published. The April 1910 issue of the French Watch Tower carried another “Call for Volunteers,” which stated: “We now have a large stock of People’s Pulpit tracts. 100,000 copies of the first tract have just been printed. This is a special issue that can be given to everybody.”

The year 1910 ended with another pilgrim trip throughout France by Brother Weber. He started his travels on December 22, 1910, and visited 30 groups of Bible Students in France, ending his trip on January 28, 1911. Immediately prior to his trip, on December 4 and 5, 1910, a general assembly  of Bible Students in the north of France was held in Lens.

RUSSELL MAKES TWO MORE VISITS TO FRANCE

In 1911, the big event was a visit by the Society’s president, Charles T. Russell. On April 14, he spoke to a group of over 100 at an assembly held in Denain, and the following day to 70 in Lens. Bible Students from Belgium were also present at these assemblies. Brother Weber and Alexandre Freytag, another Swiss brother who was beginning to play a prominent part in the direction of the work in the French-speaking countries, assisted Brother Russell on these occasions.

From December 1911 to March 1912, Brother Russell made a tour around the world. The Souvenir Notes covering that trip says: “From Rome we went on to Paris, and here met with the little class of International Bible Students in that great city.” Among the arrangements Russell made while on this trip was provision for the opening up in June 1912 of what was called the “French Office” in Geneva, Switzerland. It was responsible for directing the work in France, Belgium and French-speaking Switzerland. Brother Russell put Emile Lanz, a Swiss dentist living in Mulhouse, Alsace, in charge of this branch office. Lanz enlisted the services of Alexandre Freytag, who helped with the translating of the French Watch Tower.

So Adolphe Weber, who had faithfully overseen the work in French-speaking Europe from its beginning at the turn of the century, stepped down in favor of the more educated Lanz and Alexandre Freytag. However, Brother Weber kept a good spirit and continued his yearly pilgrim  visits to congregations and isolated brothers in the French-speaking territories. In December 1912, he set out on a long trip throughout France that took him into 42 towns and villages.

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

The March 1913 issue of the French Watch Tower published a letter addressed to the French-speaking brothers by Brother Russell. In it he stated, among other things:

“I was happy to learn recently of the growing interest shown by the brothers in France, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy. I am very happy about this. . . . I must say a few words about the advantages of the work of the voluntary distributors who hand out tracts freely and wisely to anyone who will really read them. This work must undoubtedly be done particularly in Protestant localities, according to instructions you will receive from the Geneva office. . . . I hope a big effort will be put forth this year in France, with correspondingly great blessings for all the volunteers who share in the harvest work. It appears the colporteur work has not succeeded as well in France as elsewhere. We regret this, but we must accept it.”

Several assemblies were held in France during this pre-World War I year. In March, a two-day assembly was held in Lens, in the north, and during the summer there was another two-day assembly in the same region, in Denain, where 260 attended.

RUSSELL AND RUTHERFORD IN PARIS

On August 31, 1913, Brother Russell again passed through Paris, holding a meeting in the Salle de l’Exposition d’Agriculture, rue d’Athénes, near the Saint-Lazare station. Some 70 brothers,  including a few who had come from Belgium, Switzerland and Germany, were present.

A few weeks later, on September 19, 1913, Joseph F. Rutherford also gave a public talk in Paris. The following day, he gave a public talk in the north of France, in Denain’s Grand Theatre, before an audience of over 1,000!

PRE-WORLD WAR I REPORT

Reporting to Brother Russell on the work accomplished in 1913 in France and French-speaking Switzerland, Brother Emile Lanz wrote:

“We have decided to concentrate our efforts specially on those parts of the country in which Protestant descendants of the Huguenots and members of other Protestant sects are established. We are organizing public meetings in these areas and gathering the addresses of those who show interest. . . . The ‘Tour de Garde’ [French “Watch Tower”] has 800 subscribers . . .. The service of the pilgrim brothers is limited to French Switzerland, northern France and Belgium, where there are congregations.”

Thus the period running from the turn of the century up until 1913 ended with the accent being placed on the French Protestants, who make up only 1.5 percent of the population, and not even all of these, since emphasis was placed on the north of France.

The year 1914 also marked an extension of the work in Alsace. On February 20, the brothers from Mulhouse organized the first public meeting to be held in Strasbourg. Brother Emile Lanz gave the talk “Where Are the Dead?” before a large audience. Of those present, 350 persons left their names and addresses. This interest  was followed up by a colporteur brother from Germany, and thus a small group of Bible Students was formed in Strasbourg. In July, seven new brothers were baptized.

DIFFICULT TIMES IN FRANCE

The French Watch Tower of August 1914 announced a general assembly in Denain on August 15, 16. But on August 3, 1914, Germany declared war on France, and this assembly had to be canceled. Early in August, Germany invaded Belgium and the north of France. Some of the brothers evacuated to the Paris area, where they joined up with the small congregation that already existed there. Other brothers stayed behind the lines and continued preaching. Even though the area was occupied by the Germans, the brothers in and around Denain were able to hold meetings every Sunday. They received handwritten copies of the Watch Tower from their brothers in Charleroi, Belgium.

Farther south, Brother Theophile Lequime, who had left Denain and now lived in the Paris area, translated Watch Tower articles and duplicated them for the brothers. Thus, whether in front of or behind the German lines, the brothers received spiritual food. Yet, there was a growing feeling of disappointment among some anointed Christians, including Emile Lanz himself. He saw 1914 draw to a close without Christians’ being “caught away . . . to meet the Lord in the air,” according to their understanding of 1 Thessalonians 4:17. The work in the French-speaking lands was manifestly entering into a difficult period.

In his report to Brother Russell on the 1915 service year, Lanz wrote a long text justifying the  activities of the Geneva office. However, he did not include a word about the past efforts that had made the work grow to such an extent that the Geneva office became necessary! Brother Russell became suspicious of the way Lanz was handling things, and in 1916 sent Conrad Binkele, an American of German origin, from Brooklyn to Switzerland to investigate matters. Lanz resented this, showed a rebellious attitude and finally turned against the Society. Thus, Brother Binkele took charge of the central Swiss office in Zurich, and Alexandre Freytag had oversight of the “French Office” in Geneva. That crisis was over.

A BIGGER CRISIS

Brother Freytag, who translated the Society’s publications into French, began taking liberties, inserting his own ideas into the Watch Tower. Brother Weber noticed these changes and advised Brooklyn. Brother Russell, who had just recently appointed Freytag as manager of the Geneva office, wrote Weber: “If he [Freytag] is an evil servant, this will manifest itself.”

On October 31, 1916, Brother Russell died, and this brought further doubts and tests upon the brothers, as they awaited news as to who would be his successor. Finally, in January 1917, Brother Rutherford was elected the Society’s president.

Later, Rutherford, through a letter to Freytag, encouraged the French brothers ‘to follow the established program for the Berean questions.’ This term was applied to questions supplied for group study of the Watch Tower. It seems that in 1917 these Berean studies were being neglected among the French-speaking congregations, which explains Brother Rutherford’s letter.

 But another reason why Brother Rutherford insisted on the use of the Berean questions was to help the brothers stick to the truth as published by the Society. It is quite likely that Brother Rutherford had been informed of Freytag’s inserting his own ideas into the Watch Tower when translating it. Significantly, when Freytag organized an assembly for the French-speaking brothers in Geneva, October 6-8, 1917, Brother Rutherford wrote a letter to be read at the convention, which stated, in part:

“I wish to take this opportunity to greet you in Christ’s love and to assure you of my deep interest in your spiritual and temporal happiness. . . . The fiery tests that are being permitted will show who are approved and who are not. . . . All those who have pride and ambition in their hearts are in great danger, because the fallen angels will take advantage of their weakness and will conquer them unless they react strongly against these tendencies. Any deep-rooted bitterness in their hearts constitutes an opening for the Evil One. . . . Let us be messengers and servants of the truth, not of error. . . . Let us avoid empty discussions and turn away from all calumny and gossip. . . . God loves faithfulness and loyalty, which means that we should be loyal to God, loyal to the Master, loyal to his cause and to the methods He has organized for the spreading of the message of his Kingdom.”

Although warm and generous toward his associates, Brother Rutherford was also a brusque and direct type of person. He was suspicious of those who seemed to work to curry his favor. On the other hand, Freytag was a man who attached a great deal of importance to character development, and he liked to draw attention to himself and to attract admirers, particularly among the  sisters. So Freytag was one of those that Rutherford caused to take offense.

In a report on the French work printed in the December 1918 issue of the French Watch Tower, Freytag openly criticized the ‘headquarters office’ for informing him that henceforth the Geneva office should become financially self-supporting. It should be remembered that, at that time, Brother Rutherford and seven other brothers from the Bethel headquarters were unjustly serving prison sentences in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. Freytag apparently reasoned: ‘Russell is dead. His fellow workers are in prison. So according to Revelation 3:15-21, they are the modern Laodiceans whom God has spewed out of his mouth. I am the Lord’s messenger. God has chosen me to establish the new earth and henceforth to lead his people.’

THE PARIS CONGREGATION INFORMS PITTSBURGH

In view of this situation, on January 19, 1919, the Paris Congregation sent a letter to the Geneva office and a copy to the Society’s headquarters, which had temporarily been moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This letter told about the “faulty” translations of books, booklets and magazines into the French language. It said that they contained “so many mistranslations that the brothers hesitate to sell or distribute several of the publications.” The letter expressed regret for “the methods used by one of the managers responsible for the Geneva office.” This letter was signed in behalf of the committee of elders of the Paris Congregation by Brother H. Roussel, Secretary.

That same month, January 1919, the Paris Congregation formed what they called the “Centralizing  Committee” to replace the Geneva office. They did this because they no longer felt that the direction coming through the Geneva office represented the Lord’s direction.

FREYTAG PREPARES A TAKEOVER

Starting with the April 1919 issue, Freytag printed his name on the second page of each French Watch Tower, no longer as “manager” of the Geneva office, but as “editor” of the Watch Tower. As the official French edition of the Watch Tower represented less and less the English edition, some brothers in Switzerland took it upon themselves to publish a more accurate translation of the English-language Watch Tower. Thus there were for a time two French editions of the Watch Tower circulating among the brothers!

In August 1919, Freytag transferred a part of the Society’s literature stock and other property to his own address. Knowing that in January the Paris Congregation had informed Pittsburgh of what was going on, and that on March 25, 1919, Brother Rutherford had been released from prison, Freytag doubtless realized that the Society would certainly soon take action against him. So he began stowing away the property that he intended to keep for himself.

Finally, in the September 1919 issue of the French Watch Tower, Freytag wrote an article in which he claimed that God’s truth was now to be found through him in Geneva.

AN EVIL SLAVE IS DISMISSED

The very next issue of the Watch Tower contained a letter from Brother Rutherford addressed all French readers. It read:

 “Dear Brothers in Christ,

“. . . Acting as the Lord’s representative, several years ago Brother Russell established in Geneva, Switzerland, a branch office of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, appointing Brother A. Freytag as its local representative. Brother Freytag’s position was that of a simple servant of the Society and of the Lord. . . . He was never authorized to publish any magazine or tract or to distribute any publications apart from those written by Brother Russell or under his direction. . . . His case appears to be very serious, since now he claims that the Lord has appointed him as his special messenger entrusted with finishing the Church’s work.

“Because of his unfaithful conduct, the administration of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society has dismissed him and relieved him of all business to do with the French-language branch, replacing him by Brother C. C. Binkele. Brother Binkele has been authorized to choose, subject to my approval, a French brother to manage the French work under his oversight.”

FREYTAG TAKEN TO COURT

Although Freytag was legally dismissed as the representative of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the matter did not end there. The staff at the office took sides with him, and he refused to vacate the Society’s premises, 7, rue de la Tour-Maîtresse, Geneva. He also held on to the Society’s Watch Tower subscription file, the stock of literature and the very costly equipment used for showing the Photo-Drama of Creation. Furthermore, he continued publishing a magazine entitled “The Watch Tower.”

Every effort was made to persuade Freytag to give up the Society’s property, but without success. In the end, the case was taken to court, and Freytag was obliged to make restitution of the  property he had stolen from the Society. The office of the Society in Geneva was officially closed and its operations transferred to Berne, Switzerland.

Naturally, all of this was a big test for the brothers in France, Belgium and French-speaking Switzerland. A few, mostly in Switzerland, followed Freytag, who founded a sect with himself as “the Lord’s messenger.” With the financial support of his followers, Freytag later bought a big country house outside Geneva from which he ran his sect. It still exists in France under the name of “The Friends of Man.”

PEACE RESTORED, GOOD PROGRESS FOLLOWS

The work in the French-speaking field got off to a fresh start. After the Freytag affair had been handled, the French brothers held a small convention in Paris on September 28, 1919, at which a fine spirit of unity and peace was manifest. The brothers resolved to work in harmony with the brothers appointed by the Society’s president. The “Centralizing Committee” was dissolved, as it was only a ‘defensive measure’ against the dealings of the Geneva office until the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society reorganized the work.

Once again there was just one French Watch Tower, with Brother Adolphe Weber back on the translation committee. Brother Rutherford wrote to the French-speaking brothers, his letter appearing in the November 1919 French Watch Tower. After having expressed regret over the Freytag affair and explaining that now Brother Ernest Zaugg in Berne was in charge of the French-language work, he said:

“We now hope that the Lord will see fit to make unity and harmony prevail among the French-speaking  friends. . . . If circumstances had been more favorable, I would have been happy to visit you, but in this moment of great distress upon individuals and nations, it seems impossible to do this. However, if, by the Lord’s providence, the way is opened up next year, I hope to come to see you.”

The new setup for managing the work in France, as organized by Brother Rutherford, was as follows: Conrad Binkele, whose office was in Zurich, was in general charge. Ernest Zaugg, with an office in his home in Berne, was the manager of what was called the “French work,” under the supervision of Brother Binkele. Brother Zaugg had two local “assistants and counselors,” namely, Joseph Lefèvre, in Paris, and Emile Delannoy, in Le Havre. Lefèvre was Zaugg’s assistant for the publishing of literature in French, and Delannoy was to help him take care of the needs of the French congregations. In addition, Brother Henri Roussel was put in charge of a literature depot at his home, 11, rue du Rhin, Paris.

On August 27, 1919, the French International Bible Students Association was formed, with its headquarters at 11, rue du Rhin, Paris. Of course, the work in France was still under the direction of the Swiss branch, but this local association gave the French organization a solid legal footing.

Early in 1920, Brother Zaugg made a long trip to visit the brothers in France (including Alsace-Lorraine) and Belgium. Back in Berne, he wrote a letter to the brothers, saying:

“We were deeply touched to see the zeal of the brothers and sisters who are at the ready awaiting orders from the Society and the equipment necessary for starting the work of extending the  harvest. Everywhere I got the firm feeling that the terrible testing of these past years has produced fruitage in our beloved brothers in France, Belgium and Alsace, and we are convinced that the Supreme Master has thus prepared his own so that they can finish by means of his instruments the work that must still be done in the French-speaking territories.”

The teaching abilities of the brothers increased as the “Minister of the Word of God” (called V.D.M.) questions were used. These consisted of a four-page written review made up of 22 questions on Scriptural subjects. The French brothers would send these question sheets to the Berne office for checking. Those who answered satisfactorily at least 85 percent of the questions were considered proficient ministers of the Word of God.

The year 1920 also saw local pilgrim brothers appointed in France. The first was Brother Alfred Durieu from Roubaix, who had already been active in the colporteur work. In August, Brother Joseph Lefèvre, from Paris, also began serving as a pilgrim, visiting isolated brothers in central France, an area that had been neglected for so long while the French work was being directed by Lanz and Freytag. Then in December 1920, Brother Emile Delannoy was appointed as a pilgrim for France, and Brother Werner Giger for Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar.

After World War I, Germany returned Alsace-Lorraine to France. Also, the Saar coal mines were allotted to France as war compensation, although the Saar itself was placed under the League of Nations for a period of 15 years. However, both of these territories were once again placed  under the administration of the Society’s office in Berne.

RUTHERFORD VISITS​—NEW ORGANIZATION

As he had hoped, Brother Rutherford visited Paris in September 1920. On September 19, he met with about 120 brothers, of whom nearly 40 had come from Belgium and from Alsace. Brother Alfred Durieu translated for him. In the evening, Brother Rutherford gave a public talk in the Sociétes Savantes Hall to an audience of about 1,000, over 300 of whom left their names and addresses so as to be visited.

Toward the end of 1920 the creation of the “Central European Office” was announced. The countries under the supervision of this office in Zurich (formerly called “German branch in Switzerland”) were Switzerland, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria and Italy. Brother Binkele was appointed its manager, and Brother Zaugg was confirmed as manager of the “French work,” with offices in Berne.

THE PHOTO-DRAMA PRODUCES FINE RESULTS

The Photo-Drama of Creation was used extensively in France during 1920. It was shown, for example, in the northern town of Denain to 900 persons. Even finer results were realized in Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar. The French Watch Tower of April 1921 reports:

“The Photo-Drama has been a complete success in different parts of Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar Basin. The greatest success was obtained in Saarbrücken, Völklingen and Strasbourg. . . . Although the hall (in Saarbrücken) can seat 3,000, many interested persons were turned away every evening. . . In Völklingen, although the sessions were  due to start at 8 p.m., we had to start at 6:30 p.m., and the shopkeepers closed their stores earlier especially to be able to attend the Photo-Drama. In Strasbourg, at the 4th session, the audience of 2,000 persons listened with unusual interest and deep respect until 11:30 p.m., while the marvelous establishment of God’s kingdom was explained to them. We pray that our kind heavenly Father will enable this seed to bear much fruit.”

There is no doubt that Jehovah blessed these efforts to make known his name and kingdom in this territory. The report of Swiss pilgrim Werner Giger published in the August 1921 issue of the French Watch Tower tells:

“In Strasbourg the meeting attendance continues to be very good. Even on Sunday, the Berean Studies on Volume VII are attended by a hundred persons, whereas before we were only 50. In Brumath a group of 30 interested persons has been formed. They never miss a meeting and they are visibly growing in knowledge. . . . Here in Strasbourg, 10 brothers and sisters have volunteered for the colporteur work. Coming back to Saarbrücken, there is now a group of 150 interested persons who meet together regularly. . . . In that region [the Saar] several of the friends would like to be baptized.”

This great interest being shown in Alsace and the Saar was followed up by the few local brothers, as well as by brothers from Switzerland. The Berne office put Fred Germann in charge of the work in Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar, where he served faithfully until he was transferred elsewhere in 1926. He was zealously backed up in this work by Henri Geiger who was the overseer of the Strasbourg Congregation. Thus, by 1921, the work  began to be well organized in Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar.

THE WORK MOVES AHEAD DESPITE TESTINGS

The work was also moving ahead in the rest of France. Early in 1921, baptism services were held in Denain and Bruay-en-Artois in the north of France, and also in Paris. The Memorial report for that year showed a total attendance in France of 422 in 16 different towns, including an attendance of 81 in Denain and 68 in Paris.

A call for colporteurs was published in the October 1921 issue of the French Watch Tower. The preaching work was being carried out mainly through the distribution of the book Millions Now Living Will Never Die. The Society printed a special letter for the brothers to use in offering this book to their relatives and friends.

The pilgrim work, too, was intensified in France during 1921. Brothers Delannoy and Durieu visited congregations and isolated groups both north and south of the river Loire, and Brother Adolphe Weber visited congregations in eastern and northern France, as well as in Paris and Normandy, finishing his trip in Alsace.

It will be recalled that after Alexandre Freytag left the truth in 1919, Brothers Delannoy, Lefèvre and Roussel were appointed as assistants to Brother Zaugg in France. Roussel, you may remember, was the brother who, as secretary of the Paris Congregation, had signed the letter sent to Geneva and Pittsburgh in January 1919, protesting against Freytag’s disloyalty and expressing loyalty to the Society. Well, as time went by, both Brothers Lefèvre and Roussel became discontented and ended up as evil servants.

 This second testing period in the French field was really an aftermath of the rebellion that had taken place in America back in 1917. In that year, P. S. L. Johnson and four members of the board of directors of the Society had tried to wrest control from the newly elected president, Brother Rutherford. Thwarted in their plans, they began to spread their opposition outside of Bethel in an extensive speaking and letter-writing campaign throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

In 1920, Johnson visited the oldest congregations in the north of France, such as Sin-le-Noble. His purpose was to cause division, and draw the brothers away from Jehovah’s organization, and he eventually was successful. In September 1922, a group of French brothers, including Roussel and Lefèvre in Paris, printed a 16-page declaration, entitled “A Necessary Realignment,” criticizing Brother Rutherford. They distributed it widely among the French-speaking brothers, adding to the confusion and divisions.

In 1922, a general meeting was held in Denain, and pilgrim Brother Adolphe Weber was sent from Switzerland to handle matters. Sister Rachel Beugin and Brother Samuel Nongaillard describe what happened:

“According to the discontented ones, Brother Russell was the faithful and wise servant, and since his death in 1916 the work must remain as he had left it. No more light was due to appear. . . . For these discontented ones, preaching from door to door was unacceptable. For them, we should simply wait for God to intervene at Armageddon. With the help of his Bible, Brother Weber proved to them that the organization was right. . . . A vote took place which was a very close thing: 39 were against  the Society’s viewpoint and 42 were for it. The 39 ‘rebels’ left, taking their chairs with them, and formed the ‘Association of Bible Students in Denain.’”

Yet, while some left the truth in 1922 and became evil servants, the majority of the brothers remained faithful. Brother Rutherford visited Paris and strengthened the brothers in June of that year. Door-to-door work with the Millions Now Living Will Never Die book was begun in 1922. Also, Watch Tower studies were organized for the first time in the congregations. And the pilgrim work was greatly stepped up during 1922.

Thus, in spite of the severe testings the French brothers had undergone, those who remained faithful were able to have a grand share in the vital Kingdom proclamation.

WITNESSING IN ALSACE-LORRAINE

With the increased distribution of the Golden Age magazine (in German), the Watch Tower Society established an office and literature depot for Alsace-Lorraine in the city of Strasbourg, and Brother Henri Geiger was put in charge of it. The Golden Age magazines were sent in bulk from Berne and wrapped and sent out to subscribers from this Strasbourg office. The sisters would visit the many restaurants in Strasbourg, and go from table to table offering the magazines to people who were dining. Often they placed as many as 90 magazines in one evening. Sister Lydia Geiger was particularly successful in this work, sometimes placing 2,000 magazines a month.

In 1923 Brother Franz Zürcher was sent by the Berne office to show the Photo-Drama in Alsace-Lorraine and the Saar. This Swiss brother continued  to share in the Photo-Drama work in France and the Saar until 1925, when he was called in to the Berne Bethel. In 1923, there was a congregation in Mulhouse, Alsace, with about 50 associated. But that year there were 110 present at the Memorial in Mulhouse, and the same number in Strasbourg.

A STRENGTHENED ORGANIZATION

Organizationally, the French work got off to a good start in 1923. A “service director” was appointed by the Society in each congregation. He had two assistants, one to look after the accounts and the other to take care of the literature supplies, these three brothers forming a “service committee.” This marked the beginning of centralized theocratic direction in the French field. Throughout 1923, the Society organized Testimony Days through the service directors. Then on August 26, 1923, the French brothers took part in the “World-wide Witness” organized by the Brooklyn office.

Another milestone in the development of the work in the French-speaking field was the publishing in French of The Harp of God. This book gave a powerful impetus to the teaching work in France. Also, on September 2 and 3, 1923, a general assembly for the French-speaking brothers was held in Denain. Brothers Zaugg and Weber from Switzerland were present, and they, along with French pilgrim Emile Delannoy, gave the principal talks. A large banner showing the words “Advertise the King and Kingdom” was unfolded before the audience, just as Brother Rutherford had done the year before at Cedar Point in America. The brothers were enthused, and all  those present unanimously adopted a resolution. Summing up the French work for 1923, Brother Rutherford wrote:

“In the whole work we mark a real increase of zeal amongst the friends. We appreciate the great privilege we now have to proclaim the good tidings of the kingdom. Generally the friends go out in groups of five or six for colporteuring, and they sell on Sunday mornings upwards of 250 volumes.”

The year 1924 saw the publishing in French of the first issues of the Golden Age magazine. It became a bimonthly magazine in 1925, but ceased publication on Brother Rutherford’s instructions in 1926. Then it appeared again in October 1932, when it became a regularly published monthly magazine.

In May 1924, Brother Rutherford made a brief visit to France, speaking in Paris and in the north. He observed: “The French people are awakening in some measure to the truth, but there is yet much to be done in France.” Then, in July, a general assembly for the French-speaking brothers was held in Haveluy, near Denain, in the north of France, with Brother Zaugg and several other members of the Berne Bethel family serving on the program.

HOPES OF BROTHERS

There was a total attendance in 1924 of 557 at the Memorial in France, including about 300 in Alsace-Lorraine. Sister Suzanne Beugin notes regarding the hopes of many brothers: ‘Those of the remnant expected to go to heaven before the end of 1924. Brother Delannoy, who came to visit us in Denain, comforted those of us who were of the great multitude. He said we would not be  abandoned. Nevertheless, when the end of 1924 came, I was relieved to see that my parents were still there.’ However, this situation portended further testings and siftings to come the following year.

1925​—A CRITICAL YEAR

The year 1925 got off to a good enough start, with the French Watch Tower magazine being enlarged from 12 to 16 pages. Also, the tract entitled “Ecclesiastics Indicted” was distributed in France, many copies right outside the churches. In the whole of the French-speaking field, over two million of these tracts were put out!

Brother Rutherford visited France once again in May of 1925. He was scheduled to give the talk, “The Frauds of the Clergy Exposed,” at the great Trocadéro Palace overlooking the river Seine opposite the Eiffel Tower. Brothers from the north of France had come down to Paris a week beforehand to help the local brothers advertise it. But the large-sized handbills quickly got into the hands of the Catholic clergy, who put pressure on the police to stop this street advertising. As a result, some of the brothers were arrested.

About 2,000 persons responded to the invitation and came to the talk. Brother Rutherford began to speak when suddenly about 50 priests and members of Catholic Action, armed with sticks, rushed into the hall singing the Marseillaise (the French national anthem). Three times, Brother Rutherford left the stage and then came back. Opposers were shouting: ‘If he’s a judge, let him go judge the Americans!’ The August 1, 1925, Watch Tower reported:

“While a greater mass of the audience were opposed to the clergy, yet . . . they were bantering  with each other and paid no attention to the speaker; and it was impossible to address them. . . . it became absolutely necessary to abandon the meeting.”

That same year of 1925 sparked off even greater difficulties within the organization. The book Millions Now Living Will Never Die had been widely used in the French field since 1921, and on the basis of its contents, much was expected of 1925. But when 1925 came and went without the anticipated happenings coming to pass, those on the outside who had read the book made fun of the brothers. Brother Jules Anache in Sin-le-Noble writes: “We were scoffed at by our enemies who wrote articles, one of which was entitled ‘Millions now living will never die if they take Pink pills,’ referring to a remedy that was popular at the time.”

Worse still, the faith of some of the brothers themselves was shaken. Some expected to go to heaven that year. This brought about siftings in the congregations, particularly in Alsace. Sister Anna Zimmermann writes: “Unjustified hopes brought about great testings. Many gave up.”

Indicative of this testing was the question meeting held by Brother Rutherford during the Basel, Switzerland, assembly, which took place May 1-3, 1926. The report on this convention stated:

“Question: Have the ancient worthies returned?

“Answer: Certainly they have not returned. No one has seen them, and it would be foolish to make such an announcement. It was stated in the ‘Millions’ book that we might reasonably expect them to return shortly after 1925, but this was merely an expressed opinion.”

 A mistake had been made but, as Brother Rutherford stated, this was no reason to stop serving the Lord. Yet some did, and so that period marked further siftings in the French field. Figures published in the French Watch Tower show that in 1925 there were 93 present at the Memorial in the Mulhouse Congregation in Alsace, whereas in 1927 the Memorial attendance had dropped to 23.

FURTHER TESTS FOR FRENCH BROTHERS

In July 1925, for reasons of health, Brother Binkele, the manager of the Central European Office, was replaced by Brother Zaugg. The following year, Binkele turned against the Society and founded his own sect called “The Free Bible Students.” Then, Brother Zaugg was replaced in 1926 by Brother Martin Harbeck, sent from Brooklyn by Brother Rutherford. Brother Zaugg dropped out of the full-time work and eventually left the truth.

Thus, within two years, the direction of the French work was twice decapitated in dramatic circumstances. News of this reached the brothers in France, which did nothing to help matters. Thus ended a long period of wartime trials and postwar sifting among the brothers in the French-speaking field.

EXPANSION AMONG THE POLES

For various political and economic reasons, the French government opened up the way for many Poles to come to work in French coal mines following World War I. Soon, mining communities began to spring up in which only the Polish language could be heard. The miners were quickly followed  by Polish bakers, butchers, grocers and Catholic priests. By 1923 there were about 100,000 Poles in northern France, and many more were arriving daily.

The French congregations in the north of France preached among these Polish miners and their families, and many became interested in the truth. In 1923 the first Polish congregation was formed, and the following year Brother Rutherford sent Polish-speaking American pilgrims from Brooklyn to show the Photo-Drama among the Poles. These pilgrim visits greatly stimulated the brothers and strengthened their ties with the headquarters organization.

The growth of the Kingdom work among the Poles was remarkable. Of the 1,138 who attended the Memorial in France in 1926, 518 were from among the Polish population. And of the 34 congregations in France that year, 12, in Alsace-Lorraine, were German-speaking, 12 were Polish-speaking and 10 were French-speaking. These Polish congregations were visited by Polish-speaking American pilgrim brothers sent by Brooklyn, such as Brothers Krett, Ludwig Kuzma and Rycombel. In 1926 a general assembly was held in Sin-le-Noble, with about 300 present at the French gathering, and 1,000 at the Polish! Brother Albert Kosmalski, who served as a pilgrim among the Polish congregations from 1928 to 1936, relates the following:

“When Brother Rutherford visited Bruay-en-Artois [in 1924], he told the Poles that Jehovah had taken them out of their country so that they could learn the truth in France and that they and their children should help the French also to get to know the truth. He added that a great preaching work  was still to be done and that Jehovah would raise up publishers for that work.”

These words of Brother Rutherford proved true. The 1929 Year Book reports:

“The Poles are zealous; they do not content themselves with working in their neighborhood, but a number of classes have taken the responsibility upon themselves to reach distant territories. Seeking their own people in France many travel a hundred kilometers by bicycle and find the Poles not only in the mining sections but also in the country on farms, to give to them the message of the kingdom. Some of the Polish brethren have even begun to witness to the French and have had a marked success with the French ‘Freedom’ booklet. The Polish brethren are beginning to see the oneness of the Lord’s work and the necessity for doing the work according to the Lord’s method and organization. During the year 332 Polish brethren have symbolized their consecration by baptism.”

THE FAITHFUL PRESS ON

Despite the trials, the French brothers in northern France pressed on with the preaching work. In 1927, Sunday house-to-house preaching with the books and booklets began in France. Brother Weber continued to visit the congregations and isolated groups. New ones were being added. A family in the big city of Lyons learned the truth from a relative in Germany. The three daughters of this Rocques family all eventually came into the truth, their names being changed through marriage to Fenouil, Boiteux and Blanck. These families provided the nucleus for the future Lyons Congregation. In 1927, the only office for the work in France was in Strasbourg, under the direction of the Berne office in Switzerland.

 At this time, Italians in France began to be reached with the Kingdom message. The 1929 Year Book notes: “The Photo Drama has also been shown to Italians. . . . Mussolini drives good Italians out of his dominion and, behold, the Lord gives them the truth in France!” In 1928 there was a peak in publishers of 447 in France, including seven colporteurs, as pioneers were then called. There were 45 congregations.

AN OFFICE IS OPENED IN PARIS

In 1929 the office in Strasbourg was transferred to premises that the Society rented at 105, rue des Poissonniers, Paris 18. An Alsatian brother, Gustave Zopfer, was appointed manager of this new Paris office. The office was, of course, still under the jurisdiction of the Swiss branch in Berne, where Brother Harbeck was general manager.

There were approximately 40 publishers in Paris and the nearby suburbs in 1929. In the fall a convention was held at Lens in northern France, with some 1,200 present! About 600 participated in the field service and they placed more than 5,000 books and booklets. Of course, most of these were Polish brothers.

FOREIGN COLPORTEURS

In 1929 two English colporteurs (now called pioneers) crossed the Channel and worked in the Dunkirk area, and many more soon followed. Brother Harbeck, the manager of the Berne office, wrote:

“We prayed that the Lord might send colporteurs into France and our prayer was answered. Most of the colporteurs came from England and from other  countries, and without knowing the language, they are using the [testimony] cards and are having wonderful success. In 1930, eight times as much literature was placed in France by the classes as in 1928.”

In 1930 the number of colporteurs jumped to 27. The work of these full-time preachers consisted mainly in covering large sections of territory and placing literature. Thus areas that had never heard the Kingdom message began to hear it. As further evidence that the work was moving ahead, a French branch of the Watch Tower Society was opened in 1930. By that time, the staff of the Paris office had increased to five, including the local manager, Brother Zopfer, who worked under the direction of Brother Harbeck in Berne.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION IN PARIS

The first big convention in Paris was held at the Pleyel Hall, May 23-26, 1931; it marked a turning point in the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France. The Watch Tower of August 1, 1931, reported:

“According to the best count that could be made there were attending the convention, to wit, 1,450 Germans, 778 English, 551 Polish, 200 French, and smaller numbers from many other countries. It was found in canvassing the convention that twenty-three nationalities were present but almost all of them understood one of the languages, English, Polish, French or German. Discourses were given in these languages, sometimes as many as three interpreters being on the platform at a time. . . . The president of the Society delivered several addresses, and these were interpreted in turn in French, German and Polish. . . .

 “An enthusiastic spirit permeated the convention during the entire period, and when it was concluded everyone was heard to say: ‘Surely this is the best convention yet’; and of course it was the best ever held in Paris, and probably no better had been held anywhere else. The time seems now certain for the widening of the work in France. . . .

“A new location for the office has been found where there is more room, and better light. In addition thereto the Lord has provided a home in which the office force can live reasonably and comfortably as one family and also provide some shelter for a few colporteurs that will be kept constantly in the city of Paris.”

The field service was a prominent feature of the convention. It was all well planned, with each publisher being given directions and assistance. And it was a marvelous success, as The Messenger of July 25, 1931, reports:

“Each group had a couple of interpreters to aid the captain in placing his workers. Some parties went to their territory in big sight-seeing buses, which had been engaged for that purpose and which waited outside of the hail. Others who were assigned near-by territory went by trolley, taxi, or on foot. Practically 100 percent of those at the convention at that time engaged in the service. During that one morning of service, the workers placed 1,329 books and 14,557 booklets, making a grand total of 16,776 books and booklets placed in Paris during the entire convention.”

A CALL FOR COLPORTEURS

A call for more colporteurs was issued at the Paris convention. This, along with the obvious manifestation of God’s spirit, moved many to get into the full-time work. John Cooke, only a teenager at the time but who later served as a missionary  in Spain and who is presently serving in South Africa, writes:

“What an assembly that was! I shall never forget it. It was thrilling for a young brother used to a small congregation to travel with hundreds of brothers from London to Paris. And it was more thrilling still to meet the larger contingent from Germany and brothers from several other countries. How exuberant and enthusiastic these continental brothers seemed to us staid English folks! . . . Everything seemed so well organized, so dynamic, and everybody seemed so happy.

“It was then I made the big decision that changed my life. I had already thought much about being a pioneer and had a desire to be one, but my father’s opposition held me back. However, right at the first session, a sister to whom I was conversing said: ‘A young brother like you should be a colporteur, why aren’t you?’ Several times various ones made remarks like that. Brother Rutherford said in his emphatic way: ‘Nothing under the sun should stop you young folks from going into the colporteur work.’”

Another English brother, Eric Wilkinson, notes that ‘anyone from any country was invited to come to France to share in the work.’ Eric and a friend in his congregation in Lancaster, England, responded and soon were preaching the good news full time in France. Thus the pioneers in France rose from 27 in 1930 to 104 in 1931.

COLPORTEURING IN FRANCE

Brother Wilkinson tells about the colporteur work in France:

“We were assigned to work in the slum district of Paris. The janitors [concierges] were as determined that we would not work their buildings as  we were determined that we would. Often the police were brought and we were taken to the Commissaire, who usually was sympathetic and let us go. In the end, we made a kind of back apron of five pockets with straps that went over our shoulders. This was worn under our jackets, and would hold quite enough literature for one building. With this we could walk past the janitors (in their glass-walled rooms), keeping the rest of our literature in a case on our bikes. We were, of course, working with a testimony card, but my friend (who spoke French) was greatly surprised to find that, contrary to his expectations, I was placing more literature than he. He told them too much, there was no curiosity left by the time he had finished.

“Working in Paris was a great strain, especially to one bred in the country. To make it worse, in the district where we were working, we often found there was one toilet for from four to six apartments. These [toilets] were constructed in a corner of the stairs and would not have a water trap, just a straight pipe. You can understand the smell in the heat of the summer! We longed for the green fields, and as there was more of a need for pioneers in the provinces, we volunteered to go.”

Samuel Nongaillard, a French brother who was then living in the Paris area, relates an amusing experience of two of the publishers who had not yet learned much French:

“In Paris the greatest difficulty was to get past the concierges [janitors], who were real watchdogs. Two English sisters were working an apartment house in Paris when the concierge came up the stairs and asked them what they were doing and whom they had come to see. This concierge was quite aggressive, so the sisters had to quickly  find an answer. Noticing an enamel plate fixed on a door and thinking it was the householder’s name, one of the sisters replied with a big smile: ‘We have come to see Madame Tournez le bouton [Turn to enter].’”

EXEMPLARY ZEAL AND ENDURANCE

Those early pioneers were exemplary in their zeal and endurance. They gave up physical comforts, but they realized many rich spiritual blessings. Mona Brzoska, an English sister, wrote concerning her pioneering experiences in France in 1931 and the following years:

“Our accommodation was generally of a very primitive nature and one of the big problems was the heating in the wintertime. We were often obliged to make do with a freezing cold room where we had to break the ice on the water in the jug in the morning before we could wash. A little oil stove served to do our simple cooking. The camping equipment available today did not exist at that time. Our equipment was therefore rather primitive and our way of life was quite Spartan.

“We never saw other Bible Students; we were completely isolated. This was the biggest change in comparison with our own country where we had always been in contact with the brothers. We had to fight this isolation by regularly studying together the Society’s publications. Since back in those days we did no back-calling or home Bible studies, in the evening we had time to write to our family and especially to other pioneers, to share our experiences and encourage one another. Some years we even had to take the Memorial together, just the two of us.

“We put in long days’ work. We traveled 50 or 60 kilometers [31-37 mi.] on our bicycles each day. We had to start early in the morning, particularly  in winter, so as to take advantage of the daylight hours.”

Although the majority of the early pioneers were English, other nationalities, including Germans, Swiss, Polish and French, were also represented. These pioneers often subsisted on meager provisions. A French brother told of visiting some foreign pioneers in Lyons who gave him the following recipe:

“In the evening, put a measure of wheat in a vacuum flask and cover it with boiling water. Pour it out the following morning and sweeten with sugar. The result was something that was eatable, no doubt nourishing, but not very appetizing.” At least, not for a Frenchman!

MISSIONARIES EXPELLED, BUT THEIR WORK BORE FRUIT

In 1934, the Ministry of the Interior sent out an order for the police to deport all foreign missionaries working for the Watch Tower Society. This decree was executed by French politician Pierre Laval, who later became a traitor during World War 11 and was tried and shot. Thus, in 1934 and 1935, the majority of these foreign colporteurs were obliged to leave France.

Yet the work they accomplished enjoyed success. In 1935, Brother Zopfer, the manager of the Paris office, wrote: “The work accomplished by these from 1930 to 1934 was a sowing which has borne fruit. From all parts of France letters are continually received expressions of joy that Jehovah’s witnesses have visited them and that they have learned something of the truth.”

Yes, not a few persons who have taken their stand for Jehovah first accepted literature from  these colporteurs back in those prewar years. For instance, Brother Daniel-Oviez wrote the Society’s branch office a few years back: “Here, in the Narbonne area, some who are now manifesting interest received publications from the English pioneers before the war.” Another sister observed: “Now and again one meets elderly brothers and sisters who first obtained the Society’s literature at that time. Right now I am studying with a lady who took the Creation book during the thirties.”

So all those zealous pioneers who worked in France before the war can be certain that their French brothers today recognize the great value of the work they accomplished. They were real pioneers​—a wonderful example to the young members of the congregations today.

RADIO BROADCASTING

On February 15, 1930, the Society was able to make a contract with the Paris radio station VITUS, and by the summer of 1931 the station had broadcast 140 French, 35 English and 9 Polish Bible lectures. Brother Rutherford’s public talk at the 1931 Paris convention was carried by this station. Giving an idea of the good effect the broadcasts had is the following letter received from a Parisian:

“I listened attentively to the lecture which was given yesterday over the radio station VITUS; and permit me to express my appreciation of the speaker, whose name I could not remember. Radio station VITUS will some day be proud for having been used for such a wonderful purpose and this at a time when religion and science, in spite of progress, are so inconsistent. Hurrah for VITUS!”

The 1932 Year Book reported: “Thousands of  people in Paris and its Vicinity are hearing the message. Many of these have called at our office in Paris, which is now centrally located, and have obtained the literature there.”

Among those who came into the truth through’ listening to the radio was the Queyroi family. They lived in Saint-Ouen, a suburb just north of Paris. Several members of this family eventually entered the full-time preaching work. One of the sons, Jean Queyroi, later went to Gilead and is still faithfully serving in the full-time service in the Paris area.

But there was another benefit of these broadcasts, as Sister Mona Brzoska, one of the foreign pioneers, explained: “The mere mention that such programs were broadcast was sufficient for the people to listen to us. They did not like to admit that they were ignorant of what was going on.”

Over the years other French radio stations besides VITUS shared in broadcasting our Bible lectures. In addition, direct broadcasts from America were picked up in France. On Sunday, January 13, 1935, an experimental broadcast was made by radio stations in Schenectady and Pittsburgh. Brother Rutherford’s talk “Universal War Near” was broadcast on shortwave and received in France. The success of this experiment led to the broadcast on June 2, 1935, of Brother Rutherford’s talk “Government,” which he gave during the Washington convention and which was relayed by Radio Philadelphia and heard in Paris at an assembly held in the Pleyel Hall.

CHANGE OF ADDRESS

In April 1931, the Society’s Paris office was transferred from the somewhat dark and cramped premises at 105, rue des Poissonniers, Paris 18, to  more convenient and better situated premises rented at 129, rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, Paris 9. That same year, the Society bought a villa in Enghien-les-Bains, a suburb north of Paris, which became the first real Bethel home in France. The brothers lived here and traveled by train to Paris every day to work in the Paris office. Brother Gustave Zopfer was in charge, and his wife stayed in Enghien to look after the Bethel home.

Alice Berner, who now works in the Wiesbaden Bethel, lived at the French Bethel for a time in the early 1930’s. She relates:

 “It was a lovely place with a big garden. Of course, this also meant work for us. So on weekends, we office girls spent hours cleaning up the garden and helping, too, with the ironing.

“In the morning after the daily text and breakfast, we used to run for the train bringing us to the North Paris station. If was a comfortable train and people would be reading their early morning paper. Sometimes we had an occasion to give a witness too.

“The locality at 129 rue du Faubourg Poissonnière served many purposes. If was our office and there was also a large table with literature for those who would come in to get books or magazines. The other section served as a storeroom, and somewhat hidden away was a little kitchen arrangement because we did not go home for lunch but had it at the office. We were about seven persons then, but sometimes brothers or sisters would come in to help with some rush shipment. So we were sometimes as many as 10 or 12 persons at the lunch table having a happy time together.”

1931​—NEW NAME

In 1931 the new name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” was adopted, and many of the older French brothers mention what a stimulating effect this had on them. The October 1931 French Bulletin (“Kingdom Service”) stated, under the title “A New Name”: “How satisfying it is when someone asks you: ‘Who are you, or what do you call yourself?’, to be able to reply: ‘I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses!’”

INSTRUMENTS FOR THE PREACHING WORK

In January 1932, a copy in French of the new booklet The Kingdom, the Hope of the World was sent to the president of the French Republic, cabinet  ministers, senators, deputies, magistrates, army officers and clergymen, from the cardinals down to the local parish priests. The booklet was also distributed widely from house to house.

In October of the same year, The Golden Age reappeared in the French language. It was adapted to the French taste, and contained regularly the radio lectures of Brother Rutherford. The magazine was edited in Paris​—Brothers Gustave Zopfer, Abel Degueldre and Emile Delannoy serving on the editorial committee—​and it was printed by an outside printer in Paris. The following year the French Watchtower became a 16-page semimonthly magazine, it having been only a monthly magazine up till then.

COVERING THE COUNTRY

In 1932 there were 85 pioneers in France, and altogether 796 publishers. These used 100 motorcycles, four cars and two big buses to assist them in spreading the Kingdom message far and wide. For the first time, in 1932, all France reportedly was covered by Kingdom publishers, with 965,808 books and booklets being placed.

BEGINNING OF DEPORTATIONS

Already in 1932, France began to force some foreign publishers to leave the country. These included a number of the Polish brothers, as well as Brother and Sister Alfred Rütimann from Switzerland. Brother Rütimann did French translating, and he continued in this work after he returned to Switzerland. After many years of faithful service, he died in 1959, while still a member of the Berne Bethel family. On January 21, 1971, Sister Rütimann, in a letter to the France branch,  observed: “Alfred worked with great love for the French-speaking brothers. He spared no efforts in helping in the French translating; it was as a burning zeal within him, and we pray that our efforts may have contributed a little to the magnificent increases that we are experiencing today.”

SOCIETY’S BOOKS WIN GOLD MEDALS

In September 1933, the French brothers were invited to display the Society’s literature at a Paris exhibition. Two weeks later the brothers received from the Exhibition Committee a diploma with gold medal for religious writings. This encouraged them to participate in another exhibition a few months later and this time the Society was awarded a diploma of honor with gold medal and cross of the City of Paris. The Exhibition Committee explained in a letter:

“The diplomas which have been awarded to you during the exhibitions of September and December, 1933, are in recognition of the high moral value of your work and of the undeniable honesty which your literature reveals. . . . The Watch Tower literature is a symbol of honesty, loyalty and courage.”

TELEGRAMS SENT TO HITLER

By now persecutions of Jehovah’s Witnesses had become severe across the border in Germany. So on October 7 of 1934 all the French congregations joined with their brothers world wide in sending telegrams of protest to Hitler and his government for their persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Some French post offices refused to send this telegram, but most of them did when the brothers insisted.

 CLERGY OPPOSITION AND MASS DEPORTATIONS

As the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses prospered in France, the clergy began to see a great “danger” to “their” flocks. In Paris certain Polish clergymen held a conference, and agreed to do everything to stop our activity among the Poles. They had our literature burnt in public in front of the church doors. In other places they posted signs on the doors of churches and schoolhouses warning against the purchase of our literature.

Then, in February 1934, a letter issued by the French Ministry of the Interior stated that our writings were “subversive,” and ordered the police to expel from France all foreign missionaries. The decree also affected some of our Polish brothers who had learned the truth in France. In some places, whole communities of these devoted Christians were required to leave France within 48 hours. Thus, some congregations composed entirely of Polish brothers, not only in the north of France, but also in the mining towns and villages of central France, disappeared overnight. The 1935 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses commented about this:

“Many of these [Polish brothers] have been left without employment and with no means of support and with no money to return to their native land. A great hardship has been worked upon them. The French government also expelled Germans and English citizens who were there engaged in the pioneer service. This has made it difficult for the work to be carried on as successfully as had been hoped.”

About 280 Polish brothers returned to Poland in 1935, and some of those who remained in France became discouraged through the difficulties  encountered and gave up the faith. Thus the total number of publishers in France dropped from 1,054 in 1934 to 889 in 1935, and the number of pioneers fell from 62 to 41.

USE OF THE PHONOGRAPH

In 1934 and 1935 playing recorded Bible lectures in the homes of interested persons was a new means of spreading the Kingdom message. About  100 portable phonographs were being used in France during 1935. Reports show that 12,709 persons listened to the Society’s recordings in France during 1936. Some of the brothers working in the coal mines used their phonographs to proclaim the Kingdom message to their fellow workers. In one mine a transcription machine was installed for several days, and all the records were played for the benefit of the miners.

In 1937 our use of the radio in France was stopped when the clergy managed to intimidate the owners of the stations into refusing to broadcast our message unless it was first submitted to a kind of censorship. Thus our use of recordings was stepped up, with the brothers starting to use the phonograph in the house-to-house work. Also, sound cars began to be used extensively. Brother Samuel Nongaillard relates:

“When we arrived in a village or town, we first drew the attention of the population by playing a musical record, generally a march, and then we played records such as ‘Where Are the Dead?’ after which we told the public that Jehovah’s Witnesses would call at their homes.”

Brother Jules Anache, from the Sin-le-Noble Congregation, tells the following amusing experience:

“In Picardy, in a village in the Somme Department, we produced a peculiar sound effect. We stopped our coach equipped with loudspeakers on the top of a hill overlooking the village, but hidden in a group of trees. Then we put the sound on full blast. The inhabitants first heard the music and then the lecture, and wondered if they were not hearing a message from heaven! We placed a great deal of literature in that village.”

 CHANGES AT PARIS OFFICE TO HELP PIONEERS

Due to the departure of so many foreign brothers, there was a slight drop in publishers from 889 to 822 in 1936. However, there were still 40 pioneers in France, most of whom were foreigners. For some time they had received little or no help from the Paris office in solving their problems.

Matters came to a head at the Lucerne, Switzerland, assembly in September, when the pioneers spoke to Brother Rutherford. The 1937 Year Book of Jehovah’s Witnesses reported on the matter: “It is exceedingly regrettable to here state that during the year the Society’s local representative did not co-operate with the pioneers as he should; but this matter has been remedied and it is expected that conditions will be improved so far as this is concerned.”

The above-quoted Year Book, by the way, was the first to appear in the French language. A French edition also was published in 1938 and 1939, but then the war came, and the Yearbook did not appear again in the French language until 1971.

Brother Zopfer was replaced in 1936 as manager of the Paris office by Fred Gabler, an English brother who had been in the full-time service for years, and Emile Delannoy was appointed as his assistant. Gustave Zopfer later abandoned the truth, and even collaborated with the Nazis during the war.

SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION IN PARIS

In 1937 the second international convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Paris was held August 21 to 23 at the Maison de la Mutualité. This place contains some of the largest and most convenient  halls that could have been obtained for such a gathering. The speaker addressed the audience in the main auditorium in English, and the other halls were connected by wire. An interpreter in each of these halls translated the speech into the language of the audience. Thus the entire convention heard the same speech at the same time, each group in its own language. About 3,500 persons attended, with an additional 1,000 filling the halls for the main talk.

There were only about 100 persons at the time attending the meetings in Paris. How happy they were to have delegates visit them from around the world! Two trains came from England, and one came from Switzerland. The first international convention held in Paris in 1931 had been  a great success, but there is no doubt that this 1937 convention was outstandingly well organized, giving a small preview of the present-day assemblies held by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

After the convention, Brother Gabler was transferred to BrusseIs to oversee the work in Belgium, and Brother Charles Knecht, an Alsatian brother who for some time had been overseeing the work in Belgium, was put in charge of the Paris office. The Kingdom work went ahead well under Brother Knecht’s direction. At the time there were 10 persons working in the Bethel in Enghien, and in the downtown Paris office. The sound work was rapidly expanding; the number of phonographs being used was 236, and the number of persons who listened to the Society’s records rose from 28,412 in 1937 to 103,801 in 1938.

WHO SHALL PARTAKE?

The above was the subtitle in the April 1, 1938, French Watchtower. In that magazine the “other sheep,” then often referred to as “Jonadabs,” were directly invited to attend the Memorial, an invitation that had not been extended in previous years. The question of who should partake of the Memorial emblems was a confusing one in the minds of many of the brothers. But a talk by the manager of the Central European Office in Switzerland, Brother Harbeck, helped clear up the matter. Brother Louis Piéchota tells about Brother Harbeck’s talk in Sin-le-Noble:

“Before beginning his talk, he asked the audience who among them thought they had received the heavenly call. Most of those present raised their hands. Then Brother Harbeck developed his subject and described the many blessings awaiting  humankind when paradise will be re-established. At the end of his talk, he put this question to the audience: ‘Who among you would like to live in that paradise?’ Many hands were raised. He added: ‘If all your hopes are centered on living in that paradise earth, then you have not received the heavenly call.’”

Significantly, the number partaking of the Memorial emblems decreased, while the attenders increased. There were 1,510 present at the 1939 Memorial in France and only 631 partook.

STEPPED-UP ACTIVITY AS WAR NEARS

War clouds were gathering in Europe, and Brother Knecht foresaw that what was happening to our brothers in Germany could very well happen shortly to Jehovah’s Witnesses elsewhere in Europe, including France. So he visited the zone assemblies and congregations in France and warned the brothers to begin preparing for the difficulties ahead.

In 1938 Brother Franz Zürcher from Berne Bethel published a book entitled “Crusade Against Christianity,” giving a detailed report on the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Nazi Germany. The following year the book was published in French. And Brother Zürcher came to the Alsatian town of Mulhouse and spoke on the subject in the Stock Exchange building before an audience of 600 persons.

Up to 1939 the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses consisted primarily of placing Bible literature. But that now changed; 8,739 return visits on interested persons were reported in 1939. This adjustment in the way of carrying on the work was providential, for it gave the brothers experience  in a feature of activity that would be used extensively during the war years when literature supplies were very limited.

On France’s national holiday, July 14, 1939, the first Kingdom Hall in Paris was dedicated by Brother Knecht. The building formerly had been a blacksmith’s shop, but after several weeks’ hard work the brothers turned it into a fine meeting place that could seat 375 people. Unfortunately, however, the brothers in Paris only met in it for a few months before France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, and the work soon afterward was forced to go underground.

Those prewar years ended with 84 congregations in France. Of these, 13 were German-speaking in Alsace-Lorraine, 32 were Polish-speaking, mostly in northern France, and 39 were French-speaking. In all, there were 1,004 publishers, which represented a 19-percent increase over the previous year.

Interestingly, during the 12 years preceding the war, 503,801 books, 1,451,523 magazines and 5,798,603 booklets were placed among the French public, making a total of 7,753,927 pieces of literature! Had the work stopped then, the French people could never have said that there had not been a prophet “in the midst of them.” (Ezek. 2:5) But the work was far from finished in France, despite the difficult times that lay ahead.

THE ORGANIZATION IS BANNED

In mid-October 1939, about six weeks after the beginning of the war, the organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses was banned in France. But Brother Knecht had foreseen this possibility and had warned the brothers. So most of the congregations  had time to disperse their stocks of literature to various safer locations, even as had been done just prior to the seizure of the Society’s Paris office. The Bethel home in Enghien-les-Bains was also searched, but Brother Knecht already had removed the stencils with the addresses of all the Watchtower and Consolation subscribers, as well as all other important files.

By this time, Brother Knecht was seriously ill with pneumonia. The last letter he sent to all French congregations as overseer of the work in France was dated October 24, 1939. It read:

“Dear Brothers,

“This is to inform you that by order of the Ministry of the Interior, the Association ‘La Tour de Garde’ and the Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France are no longer authorized to exercise their activity, and that as a result the Watch Tower office situated 129 rue du Faubourg Poissonnière in Paris has been closed and the premises must be vacated.

“We will do all we can to defend our cause and our work and to justify the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses, particularly because of the present tendency to consider us as communists.

“Henceforth, these two associations no longer exist. From now on, each witness of Jehovah must carry his own responsibility before God and men. You will undoubtedly be encouraged and comforted by the fact that this persecution has come in accordance with the Lord’s words at Matthew 24:9, which must be fulfilled before all the events foretold in Bible prophecy come to pass.

“Brothers, be of good courage.

“With our warm greetings and with Isaiah 43:12; 2 Chronicles 20:15 and Matthew 10:28.

[Signed] Charles Knecht”

A few days later, on November 2, 1939, Brother  Knecht died, at the age of 41. For years he had faithfully served Jehovah in the full-time service. He was greatly loved by the brothers in France, all the more because practically all those who had been in charge of the work in France up to that time (Lanz, Freytag, Binkele, Zaugg and Zopfer) had proved unfaithful. If any general lesson can be drawn from the history of the work in France, it is certainly that Jehovah’s work does not depend upon any one man.

Brother Charles Zutter was sent from Switzerland to look after the interest of the Society in France. Also, Fred Gabler was dispatched to Paris from England, where he had gone after leaving Belgium just prior to the war.

THE “PHONY WAR” PERIOD

During these early months of the war, from September 1939 to May 1940, little military activity was going on between the French and the Germans. It was the period called the “Phony War,” the beginning of a time of real tests for the brothers. Many, especially in northern France, and also in Alsace, were put in prison.

Louis Piéchota, who after the war served as a circuit and district servant, along with five other brothers, was arrested. They were held in prison for 24 days. As this was just before Brother Knecht fell ill, he visited these brothers in Dieppe prison. Brother Piéchota writes: “He exhorted us to endure like the apostle Paul. He had tears in his eyes when he left us, and we too.”

During those early years of the war there were numerous examples of Jehovah’s protection. Brother Georges Dellemme, congregation servant in Wattrelos, a town on the Franco-Belgian frontier, relates:

 “One day I was stopped by a Customs Officer who searched me very thoroughly. He found a ‘Watchtower’ in my pocket and said: ‘And this, what is it?’

“I replied: ‘It’s a “Watchtower” magazine.’ I held the magazine in my hand with my arms raised while he continued to search me. When he stooped to search my shoes, I put ‘The Watchtower’ back in my pocket.

“When he stood up he said: ‘All right, you can go.’ What a surprise! Voluntarily or involuntarily he had forgotten the banned magazine.”

The assignment of Brothers Zutter and Gabler was to do what they could to protect the Society’s property in Paris. There were the record-manufacturing workshop, containing some expensive equipment, the Paris office at the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, and the Bethel home in Enghien-les-Bains. The Paris office building had been rented, so there was no real problem there. And the Bethel home in Enghien had wisely been placed in the name of Hugo Riemer, an American citizen, so it was safeguarded and continued to be used by the brothers throughout the war.

In the end, the only property seized by the authorities was a small automobile and some household furniture. So having accomplished their mission, Brothers Zutter and Gabler returned to their respective homes in Switzerland and England, getting out of France just before the Germans invaded in May 1940. Shortly prior to this, Brother Harbeck, the manager of the Society’s office in Berne, Switzerland, requested that Brother Henri Geiger go to Paris to help wind up the Society’s business there and to organize the work underground. Brother Geiger, you may recall, had long played a leading role in  the work in Strasbourg and throughout Alsace. Brother Emile Delannoy was appointed as his assistant.

LEAVING FRANCE JUST IN TIME

In the spring of 1940 the course of the war changed suddenly and tragically for France. Hitler’s Panzer divisions, after successfully mopping up Poland, suddenly swung around and the blitz against western Europe was on. The rapidity of their advance was amazing! John Cooke had stoically stayed on in France, being the lone English pioneer left in the country. He was reluctant to leave the new group of interested ones that he had been helping around Bordeaux. But the British Consul warned all British subjects to leave without delay. John explains:

“I realized that to stay would probably mean being put in a concentration camp where I could do nothing. The next time I passed the consulate it was deserted and a notice on the door said that any one left behind should proceed to Bayonne, a port further south, where a ship would be available. The latest news was that the Nazi advance units were only 50 kilometers [31 mi.] away. This was now June 1940, and the Dunkirk evacuation was on. So I decided I had better go.

“I spent the last day settling up affairs and arranging for Joseph, the Swiss brother, to carry on the studies and meetings. When I went to the station to get a ticket for Bayonne, it was like a camp with people sitting and sleeping everywhere waiting for a train. So I decided to use my bicycle, and set off with practically nothing with me.

“I heard later that the German Panzer units entered the city the next day. The 175-kilometer [110-mi.] ride to Bayonne was uneventful. The main wave of refugees had swept before me, obviously  in some confusion since every now and then there was a car in the ditch at the side of the road, abandoned. When I got to Bayonne it was impossible to find accommodation or food, so I slept in an uncompleted building without supper. The next day a huge crowd formed at the docks where a ship bound for England was berthed. But I never got on. After a while the order was given: ‘Women and children only.’ It was loaded heavily when it pulled out. Rumor has it that it was sunk by a German submarine before it reached England.

“The rest of us were taken by train to the fishing village of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, down near the Spanish border and there, at dead of night, with strict blackout for fear of an air raid, they took us out on the fishing boats to vessels anchored off the coast. Refugees were just streaming there from all southern France. People had left homes, businesses, everything to get away from the Nazis. After a couple days riding at anchor the refugee convoy zigzagged its way to Plymouth, England. I went straight to the London Bethel where I received a warm welcome and was provided with clothing, since I had lost all my belongings.”

FRANCE CUT IN TWO

As the German Panzer divisions advanced through France, the roads leading south were lined with refugees fleeing before the invading armies. Some of the brothers stayed where they were, while others fled south. Brother Geiger left Paris and returned to his wife and son in the Dordogne Department, in southwest-central France. On June 22, 1940, Catholic Marshal Pétain signed an armistice with Nazi Germany.

France was divided into two zones: the northern half and a strip down the western coast were occupied by the German armies and administered by them, whereas the rest of France was unoccupied  but governed by the pro-German Vichy government, with Marshal Pétain as Head of State and Pierre Laval as head of government.

Commenting on this situation, a report sent to Brooklyn from the Central European Office in Berne, Switzerland, stated:

“Since the time France was subdued by the Germans we have lost all connection with the brethren in Paris and of the occupied territory generally. Not a single letter or card, nor any other sign has reached us.

“As regards the unoccupied French territory, we exchange more or less regular correspondence with the brother [Henri Geiger] who formerly represented the Society in Alsace. He too reports that he has no news whatever of the brethren who previously worked in Paris and lived in the house in Enghien.

“It is also entirely impossible for Swiss brethren to obtain a visa either for the occupied or for the unoccupied French territory.”

ORGANIZING THE WORK AFTER THE ARMISTICE

Following the signing of the armistice in June, many French civilians who had fled ahead of Hitler’s armies returned to their homes. Brother Geiger returned to Paris. He lived with his wife and son in an apartment, and worked secularly with an Alsatian engineering firm during the day, while spending his evenings and weekends organizing the witnessing work and visiting the brothers. Telling about organizing the underground work in northern France in September 1940, Brother Geiger wrote:

“All letters were opened by the Gestapo. It was therefore necessary to visit each group and isolated brother personally. The brothers met together in  small groups for their ‘Watchtower’ studies and service meetings. They continued preaching the good news from house to house with just the Bible. When they found interested persons, they called back with publications and conducted studies.”

In Paris, the literature supplies had been saved at the time of the ban and were stocked at various addresses. Brother Delannoy organized the distribution of the literature among the brothers and also visited the various groups to encourage them. Sister Renée Gendreau and Sister Hilda Knecht stayed at the Bethel home, but then Sister Knecht died, about a year after her husband’s death. Right there in Bethel, under the nose of the Germans, Sister Gendreau typed up Watchtower manuscripts that had been translated into French, as well as stencils for mimeographing Watchtower articles!

But how did the brothers manage to get copies of The Watchtower in order to translate them into French, German and Polish? And when once translated and typed up, how were the mimeographed copies transmitted from one zone to another? For not only was France then divided into the occupied and unoccupied zones, but the zones were subdivided, and travel was restricted from one area to another.

COURAGEOUSLY DISPENSING SPIRITUAL FOOD

Sister Marthe Ebener, who had been a member of the Bethel family in Enghien-les-Bains, had gone to live with her brother in Clermont-Ferrand, a town in central France. She was a subscriber for the English Watchtower. After the German invasion of France, Clermont-Ferrand was in the unoccupied zone, under the Vichy government. Providentially, Sister Ebener continued to receive  the English Watchtower magazine from Brooklyn up until November 1942, when the Germans occupied all of France. But how was this English magazine smuggled to Brothers Geiger and Delannoy in Paris?

The instrument Jehovah used for this was a humble, unpretentious brother, Henri Germouty. He relates:

“The town of Moulins was on the demarcation line between the occupied and unoccupied zone. This demarcation line was guarded by German sentries who would fire on any unauthorized person who tried to pass. But the demarcation line at this point went through the middle of town, where a Polish sister lived who spoke German. I would call at her house, and then she would leave the house before me and divert the attention of the sentry while I passed over the line.

“Then I would catch a train, but before it arrived in Paris all the passengers were searched, the men by men and the women by women. But I knew at what point they began making this inspection, so before we arrived there I would jump from the train at a place where it slowed down. I used to travel at night and after I had jumped from the train I would hide until daybreak and then finish the journey on foot.”

Once in Paris, The Watchtower was translated, and then Sister Gendreau would type stencils so that the manuscript could be mimeographed. Then copies were taken to the brothers in the provinces. Brother Samuel Nongaillard tells how the magazine was smuggled into northern France:

“Whenever possible, a brother from Paris would take a train as far as the town of Péronne, through which the demarcation line between two German military zones passed. Another brother would travel  down to this town from the north and the magazines would be passed from one to the other on the platform of the Péronne station.”

Naturally, with paper supplies limited and means of communication so perilous, it was not possible to mimeograph and send out a copy of The Watchtower for each publisher. The brothers who acted as couriers, at the risk of their lives, could hide only one or two copies on their persons. This meant that when one copy of a Watchtower article reached a certain area, a lot of copying was done so that each small group of publishers had at least one copy containing the vital spiritual food. Sister Dina Fenouil, who then lived in the Lyons area, explains:

“I was assigned to type 10 copies of ‘The Watchtower.’ I was able to type five copies at a time, which meant typing each ‘Watchtower’ twice. Since each issue was about 14 pages of single-spaced typing, I had to type 28 pages each time. I would hardly have finished typing one issue when the following one arrived. I did this right throughout the war. Each group had one copy of the ‘Watchtower’ articles.”

Illustrating the danger often faced in getting these manuscripts to the brothers is the experience of Brother Stanis Sikora, who was in charge of a group of Polish-speaking brothers in Saint-Denis, a suburb north of Paris. He relates:

“One morning I was taking a handwritten copy of ‘The Watchtower’ to another group when I saw a group of German soldiers ahead who were stopping everybody and searching them. I kept on my bicycle and decided to continue riding slowly on. I drew parallel with the first group of soldiers and they did nothing to stop me. I kept going very  slowly and the soldiers at the barrier let me go through. I cycled on at the same slow speed until I could turn into another street, and then I speeded up considerably! Jehovah protects his work.”

OTHER CHANNELS OF DISTRIBUTION

When the Germans occupied the rest of France in November 1942 the English Watchtower was no longer being received in France or Switzerland. However, the Swiss branch succeeded in obtaining a copy of The Watchtower in Swedish. Sister Alice Berner quickly learned enough Swedish to translate the Watchtower articles into German. These German translations were introduced into France and were translated into French.

Brother Frédéric Hartstang was in charge of the work in Belgium during the war years and he organized a system of getting spiritual food delivered between Belgium and France. The borders were closed, but brothers who worked for the railway and whose work required them to travel between the two countries delivered these precious publications. Thus spiritual food circulated in this way throughout the entire war.

IN TO AND OUT OF ALSACE-LORRAINE

After Pétain signed the armistice with Germany in June 1940, Alsace-Lorraine was annexed to Germany. It was not considered “occupied territory,” but, rather, an integral part of the German state. This meant that a real frontier, or border, was established between Alsace-Lorraine and the rest of France. So the brothers in Alsace-Lorraine were completely cut off from the underground office operating in Paris. How were they provided spiritual food during the war?

When the Nazis occupied Alsace, the brothers  there would obtain copies of The Watchtower in the Vosges mountains that separated France from Alsace-Lorraine. How would they get the magazines in the mountains? Well, Brother Zinglé from Mulhouse, who was an excellent mountaineer, went to live at Saint-Maurice in German-occupied France. He would receive the French Watchtower, which, on the first Sunday of each month, he would take up to a mountain pass. He took a very steep and rocky route so as not to meet any border guards. On the Alsace side, brothers dressed up like hikers would go up into the mountains to pick up The Watchtower. The magazine would then be translated from French into German by the local brothers, who did this work in the greatest secrecy. Copies afterward were mimeographed by Brother Marcel Graft for the brothers in Alsace, some copies eventually reaching even the German concentration camps.

Although this mountain pass delivery route was a means of getting The Watchtower into Alsace from France, later in the war publications that the French brothers did not have were delivered by this same route from Germany into France. However, things did not always go as expected. Brother Marcel Graft tells:

“One day we left at dawn with our wives to go up into the mountains. The weather was marvelous. But when we got to the top, not far from the border, we suddenly heard, ‘Hell Hitler!’ It was a German border guard, who asked: ‘Where are you heading?’

“I replied: ‘We are just hiking in the mountains.’

“He looked at us suspiciously and said: ‘Don’t you know you are very near the border?’

“‘Are we really?’ we answered, acting innocently.

 “He added quickly: ‘If you intend to go across to the French side, I am warning you that our guns are loaded with real bullets!’

“We walked on in the direction of the chosen spot. Just as we got out of sight of the border guard, we found Brother Zinglé and his wife waiting for us. We greeted each other joyfully, exchanging a few words and also the publications we were carrying. Then, after a prayer, we parted company.”

When she was only 13 years old, Sister Simone Arnold was used to carry precious manuscripts, which she hid inside her girdle. Once, while she was accompanying Brother Adolphe Koehl, they experienced a close call, as Simone relates:

“A customs guard intercepted us and ordered us to follow him to the nearest farm. I was so scared that I literally had an attack of colic. Thanks to this, I was given a hot drink at the farm and allowed to go and lie down in the hay, still with my ‘Watchtower’ hidden. Brother Koehl and my mother were searched, but they had nothing on them, so we were simply accompanied to the nearest railway station.”

Surely these brothers and sisters who served as couriers showed great courage and love for Jehovah. But so did those who were involved in mimeographing the literature so that it could be distributed to the brothers. Under what circumstances was this done?

PREPARING THE LITERATURE FOR DISTRIBUTION

Brother Adolphe Koehl had a barbershop situated on the main street of Mulhouse, in Alsace, near the central station. The shop was located on the ground floor of a five-story apartment building, and he and Brother Graft each had  apartments in this building above the shop. The mimeographing was done upstairs, even as soldiers and policemen were having their hair cut by Brother Koehl downstairs! There were some close calls, as Brother Graft describes:

“I remember when the Nazis confiscated the radios of all those who did not ‘collaborate’ with them. I had sold an old icebox to our milkman, and he said he would call to pick it up the next day. The following morning I was proofreading some stencils while my wife was busy in the kitchen. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Since we were expecting the milkman, my wife opened the door. ‘Police!’ one of the men said. ‘You possess a radio and we have to confiscate it.’

“After my wife had recovered from her surprise, she called out: ‘Hurry up!’ Then she told the three policemen that I was sick and would get dressed as quickly as possible. This gave me time to gather up the stencils and put them under the bed. I had barely done this when they pushed my wife aside and entered the room, saying ‘Heil Hitler!’ When they left with our radio, we fairly exploded with joy and thanked Jehovah God for once more having protected us.”

One day, a friendly Gestapo man, who came regularly to Brother Koehl’s barbershop to have his hair cut, suddenly asked him: ‘Herr Koehl, are you still studying the Bible?’ But before he could answer, the Gestapo man warned him to be careful because he was being watched. He advised Brother Koehl that if he still had any banned publications to get rid of them in a hurry.

Acting on the warning, Brother Koehl took up the parquet flooring in his barbershop and hid Watchtowers under the floor. Little did the Nazis  who came to get their hair cut realize that they were walking just a few centimeters above stocks of banned Watchtower magazines! But the time came when all the space under the floor was filled up. What then?

Brother Koehl had a brilliant idea: The shop window would be a good place to hide things. So stencils were hidden behind the sidewalls of the shop window, and Watchtowers were hidden inside the cardboard advertisements that were exhibited in the shop window. Thus, throughout a good part of the war, Nazis gazed into this shop window without realizing that the papier-mâché advertisements contained banned Watchtower magazines!

COURIERS WHO PAID WITH THEIR LIVES

While Brothers Graft and Koehl succeeded in eluding the Gestapo, other brothers were less fortunate. In 1943 the brothers in Mulhouse were regularly receiving copies of The Watchtower from Germany, delivered by two brothers from Freiburg im Breisgau. Suddenly, no more Watchtowers arrived from that quarter. Brother Marcel Graft traveled to that German town, and learned that the two German couriers had been caught by the Gestapo and beheaded with an ax. From then on the brothers in Mulhouse, who were also receiving copies of The Watchtower from France, produced extra copies of the German Watchtower and took them into Germany. Thus, when one source of spiritual food was cut off, another opened up, and so on throughout the war.

UNDERGROUND MEETINGS IN ALSACE-LORRAINE

Small meetings were held regularly, and overseers would provide publishers with copies of The  Watchtower and would comfort them. Those who did not have the courage to come to these meetings were not given any literature, because they were considered unreliable. Brother Jacques Danner relates:

“Meetings were held each week, on different days, at different times and in different places. Depending on the time of the year, we would meet in the forest, in a meadow or in a home, often around a table set for serving coffee, and the sisters had knitting with them to serve as an alibi. The Gestapo never took us by surprise during these meetings. The brothers accepted their responsibility and meeting attendance was good. When the meetings were held in my home, we would leave our youngest child down in the yard, and if the police came she would cry out ‘Mother,’ and those present would go out through the back garden.”

INTO CONCENTRATION CAMPS

In September 1941 several brothers in and around Mulhouse were arrested by the Gestapo. Among these were Brothers Franz Huber, who had been congregation servant in Mulhouse since 1938, Adolphe Arnold, Fernand Saler, Eugène Lentz and Paul Dossmann. By the end of 1941 all five of these had been sent to the Dachau concentration camp near Munich, Germany.

There they were put into the punishment block, where they joined German, Czechoslovak, Yugoslav and Belgian Witnesses. By April 1942 Brother Franz Huber was growing weaker under the bestial treatment. Brother Arnold wrote:

“Brother Franz Huber was 64 years old and his strength was leaving him. But he never failed to express the hope that was holding him up, which was a marvelous witness. One day, barely a week  before he died, he took hold of both my arms and looking at me straight in the face, he said: ‘In spite of all, we have conquered!’ And his eyes were shining!”

Brother Arnold was taken to the camp commandant’s office and told that his expertise as a silk-screen printer would be put to good use in the camp and his wife and daughter would be cared for if he renounced his faith. But if he refused to do this, he was warned that his wife would be arrested and his young daughter sent to a reformatory. Naturally, Brother Arnold refused. So he was handed over to the camp doctors who used him as a human guinea pig for testing malaria and typhus germs. He survived, but he attributed this to his receiving food parcels from his wife. These contained a special treat, as he explained:

“One day, while eating something from one of the parcels, I bit on something hard. It was a tiny roll of paper wrapped in cellophane. The paper was covered with very small writing. It was a ‘Watchtower’ article in condensed form. Naturally, my wife was risking her life doing this. After she was arrested and deported, my sister-in-law, Sister Walter, continued this dangerous correspondence with the help of Brother Koehl in Mulhouse. Thus these food parcels contained spiritual vitamins!”

CHILDREN PUT TO THE TEST

What happened to children during these terrible days of persecution? Could they be expected to remain faithful under the severe tests that the Nazis brought against them?

At the beginning of each school session, the German national anthem was sung, a prayer was said for the Führer and the children were required to say ‘Heil Hitler!’ with their right arm stretched  upward. But Witness children, such as eight-year-old Ruth Danner, refused. She was taken before the headmaster and all the other teachers and questioned, but she would not betray her parents. Brother Jacques Danner explains: “Each day, before she left for school, we said a prayer together and we counseled her to quickly ask Jehovah for his spirit and his help before she was questioned.” Ruth later was deported with her parents and interned in six different German camps. After the war, she became a pioneer and graduated from the 21st class of Gilead missionary school in the U.S.A.

Also, Brother Arnold’s daughter, Simone, was expelled from high school because she refused to say ‘Heil Hitler!’ She was sent to another school, where she was soon in trouble again because the children were required to bring to school each week old scrap metal to be used for making munitions. Eventually she was tried before a juvenile court and sent off to a reformatory school in Constance, Germany, where she was submitted to Nazi indoctrination for 22 months. But she maintained her integrity! Later, she also pioneered, graduated from Gilead, served as a missionary in Africa and married Max Liebster, at the time a member of the Brooklyn Bethel family.

NEUTRAL UNTO DEATH

In August 1942, the young men in Alsace-Lorraine were called up for service in Hitler’s armies. Some Witnesses, including Brothers Freyermuth, Hofer and Sutter, paid for their neutrality with their lives. A few hours before he was beheaded with an ax in Torgau prison, Germany, 23-year-old Marcel Sutter wrote the following letter:

 “My dearly beloved parents and sisters,

“When you receive this letter, I will no longer be alive. Only a few hours separate me from my death. I ask you to be strong and courageous; do not cry, for I have conquered. I have finished the course and kept the faith. May Jehovah God help me until the end. Only a short period of time separates us from the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. Soon we will see each other again in a better world of peace and righteousness. I rejoice at the thought of that day, since then there will be no more sighing. How marvelous that will be! I am yearning for peace. During these last few hours I have been thinking of you and my heart is a little bitter at the thought of not being able to kiss you good-bye. But we must be patient. The time is near when Jehovah will vindicate his Name and prove to all creation that he is the only true God. I now wish to dedicate my last few hours to him, so I will close this letter and say good-bye until we meet again soon. Praise be to our God Jehovah! With my warm love and greetings,

Your beloved son and brother,

Marcel”

SISTERS ALSO THROWN INTO THE CAMPS

In 1943 the sisters in Alsace-Lorraine began to be arrested and many were sent to the Schirmeck-Vorbruck concentration camp in Alsace. Sister Arnold managed to smuggle in a Bible, as she relates:

“Since I was expecting to be arrested, I had a special corset made for a fallen womb which included a pocket meant to be inflated with air. I hid a tiny Bible in this pocket. When they took me to prison I was told to undress, but when the inspector saw this complicated corset she said: ‘Oh, dear! We haven’t time to take all that off.’ Thus, thanks to Jehovah I was able to introduce into the  Schirmeck concentration camp the only spiritual food we were to get for months. I divided this little Bible into as many parts as there were sisters in the camp.”

A number of the sisters were transferred to concentration camps in Germany, including the dreaded Ravensbrück concentration camp. Thus many brothers and sisters, young and old, proved their integrity under severe trials, some sealing their faithfulness with their lives. Indeed, it can be said that the modern history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Alsace-Lorraine is a record that honors Jehovah’s name.

OTHERS ENDURE SEVERE TESTS

The brothers in the rest of France were also maintaining their integrity. Early in the war, French authorities arrested several Polish brothers and sent them to Le Vernet internment camp in southern France. Here they were beaten for refusing to salute the flag, and one of them, Brother François Baran, died. Many of these fearless Polish brothers ended up in Nazi concentration camps. One of them, Brother Louis Piéchota, who had been in one prison or camp after another, relates:

“We were transferred from the Vught camp to Sachsenhausen in the spring of 1944. Here we had the great joy of meeting German brothers, some of whom had been detained since 1933. They gave us precious help both spiritually and materially. As soon as a convoy arrived in the camp, the German brothers would inquire of the new arrivals if there were any Witnesses among them. If there were, they immediately helped us. Sometimes it would be warm underclothing or a pullover, or maybe some leftovers from the guards’ meals, since  some of the brothers worked in the kitchens. One day a brother gave me a Bible. Just imagine, a French Bible in a German concentration camp! I never did learn how he obtained it. It made me very happy. The brothers regularly received ‘The Watchtower.’ Since they were spiritually fed, they were spiritually strong.

“Later I was assigned to work in the camp bakery. The German brothers encouraged me not to bring out any bread unless it was allowed. They said it would be preferable to die of hunger rather than to bring reproach on Jehovah’s organization. This counsel greatly impressed me.”

Brother Jean Queyroi, who had become a pioneer in 1938 and then served in the Paris Bethel in the shipping department, also was in various prisons and German camps. He was able to maintain his spiritual strength in these places of confinement, as he explains:

“In whatever camp I found myself, I did my best to give a witness. For example, in a camp in East Prussia, there was a notice board used for giving instructions to the prisoners. In a corner of this board, each day I would pin a piece of paper upon which I had written a witness on some Bible subject. Those prisoners who were interested came to see me, and each evening I would hold a little meeting with six, eight or even 10 prisoners.

“I was not left without spiritual food. My sister would type ‘Watchtower’ articles on very thin paper which she would roll up and hide inside macaroni. These parcels were inspected by the guards but they never noticed what was going on. I even received the ‘Children’ book this way.”

Thus, although to a lesser extent than their brothers in Germany and in Alsace-Lorraine, the brothers in France had their share of persecution.

 HELP DURING THE OCCUPATION

In spite of the ban and the German occupation, the brothers continued to preach with just the Bible, visiting a few homes on one street, and then a few on another. If anybody showed genuine interest, they would return with literature. But care had to be exercised, and Jehovah’s angels were helping, as indicated by Brother Albert Kosmalski’s experience:

“A Monsieur Heinrich ordered the two books ‘Deliverance!’ and ‘Creation’ in German. When I knocked at his door as promised, he asked me to come back in one hour because he had visitors. So I went down to the next floor to visit another interested person. He asked me if I had been to the floor above, and if I knew who Monsieur Heinrich was. I told him that he was an Alsatian and that he was interested in the truth.

“‘No, he belongs to the Gestapo, and he plans to arrest you today,’ the man answered. ‘He told the concierge [janitor] not to let you leave the house.’

“This gentleman took me quietly down and let me out of the house through the back door. I thanked Jehovah for having delivered me from that situation. Toward the end of the war Heinrich was shot in the street by members of the French Resistance.”

Actually, the French authorities generally were very lenient toward Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Nazi occupation. They even helped at times, as Auguste Blas of Denain reports:

“Somebody told the German commandant that there was a stock of literature in my home. As a result a search was ordered, which was to be carried out by the German authorities led by the local French police chief and an interpreter. The  police chief knew that the literature was in my home. So instead of leading the Germans to my house, he took them to the home of our congregation servant, Marius Nongaillard, where they found nothing. This friendly French police chief thus saved me from being sent to a concentration camp.”

To cite a similar example: When the Germans arrived in Sin-le-Noble, they requisitioned the Kingdom Hall for their use. However, the immersion tank under the platform was filled with literature, including the book Crusade Against Christianity in German! So the brothers went to see the mayor of Sin-le-Noble, explaining the situation and saying that if the Germans found this literature it would create bad relations between them and the local authorities. So the mayor told the Germans he needed this hall for the local school. Thus the hall became a classroom and, wonder of wonders, a Witness schoolteacher was appointed to work there as a teacher!

The local French authorities often came to the aid of the brothers in such ways as this. To give one more example: A brother in the north of France, who was carrying a carton of Fascism or Freedom booklets on his bicycle, was stopped by a French police inspector. The inspector asked him what he was carrying.

“Open up the carton and look,” the brother replied.

When the inspector saw what was inside, he asked the brother: “What are you going to do with these?”

The brother gave him a good witness, after which the inspector told him to get going, but to be careful not to be stopped by somebody else!

 UNDERGROUND PRINTING

One of the notable exploits of the French brothers during the war was the underground printing of the Children book. Since Brother Samuel Nongaillard was in business, he was able to obtain some paper, which was rationed during the war. Arrangements were made for the printing by a printery at Chennevières-sur-Marne, a small town a few miles east of Paris.

“The day I went to fetch the Children books, the police stopped me on my way back,” Samuel reports. “It was in May 1943. They asked what I had in the truck. I told them I was carrying books. They inspected them and asked what the book was about. It happened to be the time when Catholic parents were taking their children to First Communion. So I replied, ‘A book to explain Jesus to the children.’ This explanation apparently satisfied them, for they let me go.”

FIELD SERVICE REPORTS

During the war years in France, the brothers made efforts to send in field service reports. However, contrary to instructions, an elderly sister sent a report on a postcard using the usual abbreviations. This intrigued a member of the German secret service. Brother Robert Jung explains:

“One day, while Brother Auguste Charlet, my fleshly brother and I were eating our evening meal, the doorbell rang. It was a French secret police agent. No doubt he took us for members of the Resistance movement. Anyway, he asked us to help him send in a report on this matter which would satisfy the German security police and avoid us having any trouble. He offered to come back the next day so that we would have time to think up some explanation.

 “As agreed, he returned early the next morning and read the explanation we had prepared. We said it was a Bible game played by mail and that the abbreviations and the numbers stood for Bible books and verses where the answers were to be found. He seemed very satisfied with this explanation and thanked us for helping him carry out this mission. He left us and we never heard any more about the matter.”

The field service reports were all eventually sent to three addresses in or near Paris​—to Brother Geiger, to Brother Delannoy, or to Sister Renée Gendreau living at the Bethel home. But every so often brothers, or people who had our literature, wrote to the Paris office that had been closed down by the police in October 1939. So Sister Gendreau would drop in to see the janitor there and this lady would give her any mail that had arrived for the Society. When the Gestapo inquired about the Witnesses, this janitor would tell them that she only knew the man in charge (Brother Knecht) and that he was dead. Thus, this good woman risked her life throughout the war so as to protect the Society and the brothers.

WARTIME ASSEMBLIES

Beginning in 1942 and throughout the German occupation, small regional assemblies were held. These were served by Brother Geiger or Brother Delannoy. Brothers Auguste Charlet and Robert Jung also visited the isolated congregations and publishers in southern France. During these assemblies and special visits, baptism services were held.

In 1943, an underground assembly was held in Vénissieux, a suburb of Lyons, with an attendance of about 100. Needless to say, such occasions were  a source of comfort and strength to the brothers. All these activities, of course, were carried on with great risk.

A U.S. SOLDIER MAKES DISCIPLES

In 1944 the liberation of France began. This was good news for the French brothers, although the fighting across France brought fresh difficulties. Nevertheless, the preaching work continued, oddly enough, even by at least one of the liberators.

Suzanne Perrin of Vittel in northeastern France was sitting at her window one evening in September 1944, when an American soldier stopped and asked in bad French: “Do you love God?” Suzanne replied: “I love God, but not religion.” The soldier asked if he could call back to see her husband, which he did.

“Thus it was,” Sister Perrin explains, “that Richard Boeckel (who had learned the truth six months before being mobilized) brought us the truth. He preached in uniform, but refused to salute the flag, which meant that he was continually punished. He preached zealously in the entire town of Vittel, distributing books such as Creation, Deliverance!, Light, Enemies and Jehovah. Richard put us in touch with the congregation servant of Nancy, Brother Emile Ehrmann, who afterwards visited us with his wife.”

NEWS GETS THROUGH TO BROOKLYN

Evidently news got through to Brooklyn in 1944 about theocratic activities in France. Nothing had been heard for several years. Thus Brother Knorr wrote in the 1945 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses:

 “Word came to hand that ‘the whole family in Paris is well and busy in their Father’s business ‘. . . . The brethren are looking forward to the time when communications between them and the head office will be open to the fullest extent, so that the message of truth may have free course throughout all of France.”

REGROUPING AFTER THE WAR

The year 1945 Saw the collapse of the Nazi regime and the end of the war. Living conditions in France were extremely difficult, with the necessities of life being scarce at their official prices, and excessively expensive on the black market. The enemy robbed the land of its wealth, destroyed its roads and railroads, and disrupted its communications facilities. It was amid such conditions that physically weakened, but spiritually strong, brothers and sisters began returning from concentration camps.

To add to the difficulties, the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France was still under a government ban. But with the Germans gone, travel and postal communications became easier. This meant that better contact could be established between the congregations and the underground Paris office managed by Brother Geiger. Brothers Geiger and Delannoy made long trips throughout France visiting the congregations.

In 1945 the Bethel family consisted of five members, including Brother Geiger and three sisters and another brother. In addition, Emile Delannoy lived in his home in Arcueil, just south of Paris. The literature supplies were hidden in another Paris suburb, and it was there that the shipping department operated.

The Watchtower was being published under the  name of Etudes bibliques (Bible Studies) by an outside printing firm. There were 2,300 copies being printed in French, 1,200 copies in Polish and 500 copies in German. This saved the brothers much precious time in copying the articles by hand.

In 1945 Brother François Wisniewski, a Polish miner, had a significant experience. During a meal break at work one day he was surprised to see a young man take off his protective leather helmet to pray before eating. So he witnessed to him and the man accepted the truth quickly. His name was Léopold Jontès, and he later became the branch servant of France.

BROTHERS KNORR AND HENSCHEL VISIT

The French press, both in occupied and unoccupied France, had carried a news dispatch in January 1942 announcing the death of Brother Rutherford. The news of his death and of his being succeeded by Brother Nathan H. Knorr had even reached the Dachau concentration camp by 1943. But who was Brother Knorr?

The French brothers were able to have their first personal contact with him on November 17, 1945, when he and his secretary, Brother Milton Henschel, made a brief stopover in Paris. This visit lasted only a few hours, but it provided some opportunity to discuss reorganizing the work and getting it on a legal footing. However, that night Knorr and Henschel had to catch a train for Berne but promised to return.

Eleven days later, on the morning of November 28, Brothers Knorr and Henschel and their interpreter, Alfred Rütimann, arrived at the Paris East train station and were met by Henri Geiger and  his son. A visit was made to the American embassy, the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, and finally a lawyer. As you may recall, in October 1939 the work had been prohibited in France by order of the Ministry of the Interior. So this matter needed handling through proper channels in order to obtain legal recognition of our work.

That evening Brother Knorr spoke to 21 brothers and sisters in Paris through an interpreter for an hour and three quarters. All were very enthusiastic and expressed their joy in their privileges of service. Brother Knorr promised to have clothing sent to them. He had seen the brothers’ great need for such material assistance, as their clothing was old and worn out. Of the eventual arrival of this clothing, Brother Geiger wrote:

“This promised sending​—eight tons of clothing men, women and children—​came in in 75 cases and has been distributed among the brethren. Numerous were those whose eyes became humid when holding their gifts in hand, and all wholeheartedly thank their American brethren for this true Christian gift. So, numerous brethren were better equipped for the gospel-preaching work during the coming winter.”

A DECREASE DURING THE WAR YEARS?

You may remember that back in 1939, when the war began, a peak of 1,004 Kingdom publishers had been reached in France. Surely there must have been a decrease during those difficult war years. Not at all! The number of publishers doubled to 2,003 in October 1945! And, as you realize, these new publishers started preaching at the risk of their liberty, and even their lives!

The Memorial attendance also rose, from 1,510  in 1939 to 3,644 in 1945. Thus, whereas it had taken nearly 40 years of activity to reach the total of 1,004 publishers in 1939, it took only six years​—the difficult years of the second world war—​to double this figure. This is an outstanding fact in the modern history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France, a fact attesting that Jehovah protected and blessed his people.

THE BAN​—WHAT WAS DONE ABOUT IT?

Although the ban was still in force in 1946, the preaching work continued to go ahead. At first the brothers worked from house to house with only the Bible. To assist them, the circuit work was also organized in 1946. At that time, there were just two circuits, served by two brothers who had both been in German camps, Brothers Paul Dossmann and Jean Queyroi. The brothers greatly appreciated these visits by the two “servants to the brethren,” as the circuit overseers were then called. Yet what could be done to be relieved of the ban?

During his visit in November 1945 Brother Knorr had seen an influential French lawyer, Maître Pierre Gide. However, the efforts of this lawyer had proved fruitless. So the French brothers decided to see what they could do themselves. In the autumn of 1946 they made repeated efforts to see the responsible people in the various government offices that were holding things up and preventing the legal recognition of the work. However, matters were still bogged down in various French governmental offices in 1947.

But then the brothers in Paris learned that the well-known French politician Léon Blum, the founder of the modern French Socialist Party and  of its newspaper Le Populaire, had been with some Jehovah’s Witnesses in a German concentration camp during the war and had expressed his admiration for them. Although Léon Blum had retired from active politics, he was considered one of France’s most respected elder statesmen. So the brothers endeavored to enlist his support.

They learned, however, that he was ill and could not receive any visitors, and that his address was kept secret to avoid people writing to him. But the brothers found out that Léon Blum’s chauffeur came each day to the offices of Le Populaire to pick up his mail. A letter was written to Monsieur Blum, explaining the Society’s problem, and it was given personally to his chauffeur. A few days later the brothers in Paris received a letter from him stating that he was willing to help, and that he had already written to the government recommending that the ban on our work be removed. As a result, on September 1, 1947, the work of Jehovah’s Witnesses was again legally authorized in France!

A NEW BETHEL HOME AND OFFICE

To facilitate the organization of the work, Brother Knorr instructed that the house in Enghien-les-Bains be sold and that the money be used to purchase property in Paris that would be big enough to house the Bethel family and the office. Brother Geiger found a suitable house in a quiet residential section of Paris, located at 3, Villa Guibert, 83, Rue de la Tour, Paris 16. Thus, on October 1, 1947, the official address of the French association was transferred here. To begin with, a total of eight persons, including Brother and Sister Geiger, served at this new Bethel.

 ASSEMBLIES WITH BROOKLYN VISITORS

For the eight years since the ban was imposed, no regular public assemblies could be held. Thus, 80 percent of the brothers had never attended such gatherings, since most of them had accepted the truth during and after the war years. Therefore, how marvelous it was to see a total of 6,500 freely come together in the cities of Lyons, Strasbourg, Paris and Douai for assemblies in 1947. And it was a special treat to have visiting speakers from the Brooklyn headquarters, including Frederick Franz, Grant Suiter, Hayden Covington, as well as Brothers Knorr and Henschel.

THE DEATH OF TWO FAITHFUL SERVANTS

When arrangements were made to receive the regular Watchtower magazines again in France, Brothers Dossmann and Queyroi, who had been visiting the congregations, were called into Bethel to help to organize a shipping department. Thus, Emile Delannoy was sent out to visit the congregations, as he had often done in previous years. But this proved to be his last trip, for he fell sick and died on August 5, 1948. Brother Delannoy, along with his wife, Marie, had faithfully served Jehovah in France for some 40 years.

Just the year before, Adolphe Weber had finished his earthly course faithful to Jehovah. You will remember that he was the Swiss brother who had started the work in France about half a century earlier. On several occasions he had helped the French brothers to weather the storms of testings that had shaken the French-speaking field. All the brothers in France who knew Brother Weber speak of him warmly and recognize the important part he played in the development of the work in France.

 UNDERGROUND MEETINGS RESURFACE

Since 1939 the brothers had met in smaller family groups, but beginning in 1947 congregations rented halls for their meetings. By then Paris had three congregations. With the resuming of meetings in Kingdom Halls, there were some surprises. Sister Marcelle Malolepszy relates what occurred in Besançon, in eastern France:

“The work was now free again. How happy we were! At the first meeting people met ones at the Kingdom Hall and learned for the first time that they were Witnesses. A grocer, for example, discovered that some of his customers were his brothers. A gendarme’s daughter met her ex-Sunday school teacher at the hall. If is impossible to describe the joy we felt when we met together for the first time. There were about 80 of us present at that first meeting.”

PIONEER WORK OPENS UP AGAIN

Although there were 2,380 publishers and 104 congregations in 1947, there was not a single pioneer in France. As noted before, the work had been granted legal recognition only since September 1947. So the December 1947 French Informant (Our Kingdom Service) carried an appeal for pioneers, and the following year saw a fine response.

In January 1948, eight zealous Witnesses, including Sister Simone Arnold, began pioneering. By August there were a total of 96 pioneers, including 20 vacation pioneers. Together they formed a happy and valiant combat army of Witnesses​—brothers and sisters, young and old, single and married—​all bearing witness despite many difficulties. In 60 departments out of the 90 that then made up France, there was not one witness of Jehovah! So the pioneer service was vital to  opening up the work in many parts of the country.

In 1948 the pioneers worked in 49 different towns, some where there were no Witnesses. Many were sent to places where there were just isolated groups of publishers. Thus, largely through their diligent efforts and Jehovah’s blessing, the number of congregations rose from 104 in 1947 to 150 in 1950.

CIRCUIT WORK BEGINS

During early 1948, no “circuit servants” were visiting the congregations in France. But the need for them was evident. So five zealous young pioneers all in their 20’s​—Léopold Jontès, Antoine Skalecki, François Baczinski, Raymond Tomaszewski and Thaddée Mlynarski—​were called to Bethel and acquainted with the duties of this service. On October 1, 1948, they started serving congregations.

These young brothers had large circuits. And since most of the Witnesses in France at that time were poor and lived in tiny dwellings, they had to be prepared to “rough it.” They rarely had a bedroom to themselves. And none of them could afford an automobile or even a motorcycle.

MEMORIAL AND ASSEMBLIES

The Memorial celebrated in France in 1948 was the first one to be held publicly since the one of 1939. The brothers in the Paris region all met together in a large hall rented in the southern suburb of Kremlin-Bicêtre. About 500 were present, although at that time the 10 congregations in greater Paris had less than 300 publishers. In all France, there were 5,912 in attendance, with 407 partakers.

Ten district assemblies were organized in 1948.  A total of 9,235 attended the public meeting. The book “Let God Be True” was released in French, and it proved to be a wonderful instrument for freeing the French Catholics from bondage to false religion. For many years the majority of those who took their stand for the truth did so after having studied this Bible aid.

Also, the French Watchtower magazine again began to be received in France during 1948. The first postwar Watchtower campaign was organized, and 6,043 new subscriptions were obtained throughout the year.

FURTHER POSTWAR ORGANIZING

Beginning with the January 1948 issue, the French Awake! published lessons from the English textbook Theocratic Aid to Kingdom Publishers. This infused new enthusiasm into the Theocratic School, which had been functioning for some time with the booklet Course in Theocratic Ministry.

In 1948, following the lifting of the ban the previous September, public talks began to be given in the congregations. These were the first such public meetings since 1939.

Then, in 1949, four Gilead graduates arrived in France to help. Two of them were sent as missionaries to the transatlantic seaport of Le Havre, in Normandy. One reports a consequence of not understanding French very well:

“I would often see the notice ‘Chien méchant’ [literally, Wicked Dog​—in English we would say, ‘Beware of the Dog’]. However, I confused ‘mechant’ with the English word ‘méchant’ so to me this notice meant ‘Dog Merchant’ or ‘Buyer and Seller of Dogs.’ I often remarked to myself how many there were who had this trade in Le Havre! So quite oblivious of any danger, I would push  open the gate with the dog barking at my heels. The householder would often be surprised to see me there in front of the door, calm, and with the dog by my side. I was never bitten once! No doubt they wondered what charm I had on their dogs. Little did they know that the reason was lack of knowledge of the French language!”

The other two Gilead graduates were sent to the Paris branch, their particular purpose being to help Brother Geiger organize the preaching work in France, as well as the operation of the branch office. The Bethel family was then made up of 12 members. All desired to cooperate with the suggestions made so that things would be done the way the rest of God’s people were doing them throughout the world, as directed by the “faithful and discreet slave.”

Thus, for the first time circuit assemblies were held in France. These followed closely the pattern of the programs provided by the Brooklyn office. The Kingdom Service Song Book, then recently published in French, was first used at these 1949 circuit assemblies.

Another big help to the publishers was the printing of a French edition of the booklet Counsel on Theocratic Organization for Jehovah’s Witnesses. This, together with the help now being given by the circuit servants, did much to unify the methods of preaching and of organizing the congregations throughout France.

THE WORK SURGES AHEAD

All the efforts put forth in 1949 to organize the work in France theocratically produced abundant fruitage in 1950. The number of Kingdom publishers in 1949, 3,236, leaped to 4,526 in 1950, an  increase of 40 percent! A peak was even reached of 5,441 publishers, more than double the average number of publishers in France two years previously!

To meet the needs created by this tremendous increase, the number of circuits was increased to 10. The circuit servants were greatly helped during this year by two American Gilead graduates of Polish or Ukrainian origin, Stephen Behunick and Paul Muhaluk, who had been deported from Poland and who, before returning to the United States, spent several months in France accompanying the circuit servants. These worked particularly in the northern circuits where there were many Polish brothers. Also, in 1950 the special pioneer work was opened up in France.

The year 1950 was memorable for several other reasons: The first three French brothers went to  Gilead. They graduated in the summer of 1950 at the Theocracy’s Increase Assembly in Yankee Stadium, New York. Then seven others from France attended the 16th class of Gilead, which began in September 1950.

Including the brothers invited to Gilead, 20 delegates from France attended that memorable Theocracy’s Increase Assembly in Yankee Stadium. Echoes of this wonderful convention reached the brothers in France at the district assemblies held later that year. Some of the French delegates gave animated reports at these assemblies on the wonderful things they had seen and heard in New York. They had been particularly impressed by their visit to the Brooklyn headquarters.

FIRST POSTWAR INTERNATIONAL ASSEMBLY

The big event in 1951 was the first international gathering held in Paris since 1937, the Clean Worship Assembly. Delegates came from 28 lands, including faraway places such as Australia, New Zealand, the Philippine Islands, India, South Africa, Venezuela and North America. The convention site, the Palais des Sports, stood only a block from the beautiful Seine River and a few blocks south of the skyscraping Eiffel Tower. A convention of the magnitude planned had never been held by Jehovah’s Witnesses in France.

“The assembly was like a big experiment,” observed The Watchtower. “This was the first time a hot-meal cafeteria had been organized, the first time magazine bags had been made, distributed and used, the first time special trains had been arranged. But the big job was undertaken with faith, obstacles were surmounted and God Almighty  imparted his blessing and help. Result: grand success! . . . the attendance shot up from 6,188 witnesses to 10,456 present for the announced public lecture.”

During the convention Brother Knorr explained that after many years of faithful service, Brother Henri Geiger, for health and other reasons, was being replaced by Brother Léopold Jontès as branch overseer. The French applauded their appreciation of both the outgoing and the incoming branch servant.

A PERIOD OF REMARKABLE GROWTH

In 1951 a period of remarkable postwar expansion was concluding. Since 1947 the number of publishers had increased by leaps and bounds. There was a 10-percent increase in 1947 over the year before, and the only reason it was not much higher is because many of the Polish brothers in the north of France accepted an offer by the Polish government to return to Poland. Then in 1948 there was a 20-percent increase, followed by a 23-percent increase in 1949, 40-percent in 1950 and 34-percent in 1951.

During a four-year period the number of publishers tripled, rising from 2,380 in 1947 to 7,136 in 1951. In the 1951 service year alone, the Greater Paris Congregation grew from 650 to 1,085 publishers; 1,065 persons were baptized during the year, which was one out of every seven publishers in France!

This meant that the majority of the publishers in France were spiritually young “lambs,” needing help to acquire maturity. So the following period in the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France, from 1952 to 1956, was marked by a slowing down  of the expansion, and a building up of the Christian maturity of ones already within the congregations.

“WATCHTOWER” BANNED, BUT PREACHING SPREADS

Starting with its January 8, 1952, issue, the French Awake! magazine became semimonthly. Also, street witnessing was engaged in with the magazine bag, and 285,837 Watchtower and Awake! magazines were placed in France that year, more than at any previous time in the history of the work in France. But then, like a bombshell, at the end of December in 1952, the public press dropped the news that the Watchtower magazine had been banned.

The Minister of the Interior, acting on advice from the head of the Security Police, prohibited the distribution and sale of The Watchtower throughout France and the French territories. The reason for the ban was that The Watchtower supposedly incited young men to refuse military service. But certain French newspapers expressed the view that this was merely a pretext, and that the real reason was that The Watchtower printed articles that showed the duplicity of the Roman Catholic Church.

Despite the ban, 1952 was a good year for the Kingdom work. A particular reason is that the brothers began making a concerted effort to reach areas in France where no Witnesses lived. The March French Informant (Our Kingdom Service) encouraged the Witnesses to preach during the summer months in territory not assigned to congregations. Most of France’s publishers then lived in the mining region of the north, where large congregations worked their territory every few  weeks. Yet in large towns in nearby departments no preaching was being done. This was also true of the Mediterranean island of Corsica, which is part of France, lying about 160 kilometers (100 mi.) from the Riviera. So in 1952 two special pioneers began the Kingdom work in Corsica.

CONSOLIDATING THE WORK

In 1953 and 1954, the work continued to make steady progress, a 9-percent increase in publishers being realized each of these years. Also, 1,657 persons were baptized in those years. In January 1953, the circuits were reorganized and increased to 11. At the same time, the number of congregations visited by each servant was reduced from 24 to 18 or 20, making possible more frequent visits. In addition, the number of congregation book studies greatly increased, enabling more persons to attend and permitting the conductors to give better assistance to ones needing help.

A further consolidating factor in 1953 was the New World Society Assembly, held in Yankee Stadium, New York, in July. Seventy-two delegates from France attended this wonderful assembly and had the opportunity of visiting the Brooklyn Bethel and printing factory. They were like so many Queens of Sheba who discovered they “had not been told the half.”

Also in 1953 the first full-time district servant was appointed in France, Brother Skalecki. Up to that time, the circuit assemblies had been served by Bethel brothers on their weekends off from regular work. The following year Brother Skalecki began showing the film “The New World Society in Action,” throughout France. This film gave insight into the operations of the Brooklyn  Bethel home and factory, and this helped to unite the brothers in France with the headquarters organization.

FURTHER CONSOLIDATION

The 1955 service year in France was another year more for consolidating past gains rather than rapid growth. There was a 6-percent increase in the average number of publishers, which meant an average of 456 more than in 1954. But very significantly, 1,246 persons were baptized. This shows that many of those who had been publishing had not yet taken an open stand for Jehovah, dedicating their lives to him and symbolizing this by water immersion. So this high baptism figure for 1955 is proof that Jehovah’s organization in France was being consolidated.

Another remarkable feature of the work during the year was the great increase in the number of magazines put into the hands of the French public. In 1954, 288,902 magazines were placed, but in 1955, the number of magazines placed shot up to 513,236! This year marked a turning point in magazine distribution, as the number placed regularly increased by several hundred thousand each year for many years. Of course, all these were Awake! magazines, since the ban on The Watchtower continued.

ANOTHER INTERNATIONAL ASSEMBLY IN PARIS

The big event in France during 1955 was the Triumphant Kingdom Assembly held in Paris August 3-7. In 1951 the first international postwar convention in France had been held in the same Palais des Sports. At that time 10,456 attended the public meeting and 351 were baptized. How would the 1955 assembly compare?

 Opening day saw 9,701 persons thronging the building, filling the ground-floor arena in front of the platform and sitting on the tiers of seats on the sides of the bowl, some even being in the top gallery away up above. Two days later, 774 candidates answered with a firm “Oui!” to the questions put to them by the French speaker on baptism. And for the public talk on Sunday given by Brother Knorr in English and translated into French, 16,500 persons fairly overflowed the assembly place! Brother Jontès wrote:

“How grateful to Jehovah we are that such an assembly was possible! And how thrilled we were to see the news cameramen filming the immersion service and also the vast audience for the public talk! Hundreds of thousands of people were able to see these films throughout France the week following the assembly. Jehovah’s witnesses were in the news.”

PREPARATIONS FOR GREATER GROWTH

In 1956 the average number of publishers rose to 8,867, just 355 more than the previous year’s average, only a 4-percent increase. Yet 951 persons were baptized, and 12,801 persons attended the Memorial, with 232 partakers. Also, the number of magazines placed rose from 513,236 in 1955 to 869,841 in 1956! This fine activity portended greater growth ahead.

The congregations were moving out to reach as many of the French people with the Kingdom message as possible. Over 100 congregations requested unassigned territory and visited towns and villages that had not received a witness since before the second world war, if then. To help in reaching these people, special pioneers were increased from 33 in 1955 to 64 in 1956. They went into regions,  such as Brittany, that had been barely touched before. In 1956 there were 15 Gilead graduates active in France. The 194 French congregations were divided into 12 circuits and, for the first time, into two districts.

Already the Villa Guibert house, purchased in 1947 to accommodate the Bethel home and branch office, was too small, and the prospects for further growth meant that obtaining larger quarters was urgent. So on July 18, 1956, a 660-square-meter (7,100-ft.²) plot of land was purchased in Boulogne-Billancourt, an industrial suburb just west of Paris that is known the world over as the home of the gigantic Renault automobile factories. A five-story building was planned, big enough to house the family, the office and a small printery. The work in France was getting ready for greater expansion.

PERIOD OF MORE RAPID INCREASE BEGINS

For the first time the 10,000 mark of Kingdom publishers was reached in 1957, with a new peak of 10,954 publishers. That was a 12-percent increase over 1956. And both the number of hours spent preaching and the number of magazines distributed went over the million mark! Also, over 1,100 persons were baptized, and 14,488 persons attended the Memorial. During the year a refresher course was held for all the district and circuit servants who served the 212 congregations, which were divided into 14 circuits and two districts in France.

In the meantime, attempts to start construction on the new Bethel were stalled. Finally, the necessary building permit was granted on May 20, 1957, 10 months after the land had been purchased. Excavation began June 12, and by October 2, 1957,  the foundations were laid. But another year and a half passed before the building was completed.

TWO IMPORTANT EVENTS MARK 1958

The first of these was a political one, but it directly affected the stability of the Kingdom preaching in France. Due to the crisis created by the Algerian War, a state of emergency was declared in France and all public meetings were forbidden. It was feared for a time that a military junta might take over the country, but on June 1 it was learned that General Charles de Gaulle had agreed to become head of government and then Head of State. His return to power brought to France a period of governmental stability that it had not known for decades.

Since there is no law in France granting exemption from military service to ministers of religion, some young Witnesses had been in prison for nearly 10 years. General de Gaulle arranged for the release of those who had been in prison for five years or more. Later his government reduced the prison sentences that our brothers received to twice the length of obligatory military service. This meant that if young Frenchmen were called up for 18 months’ military service, our brothers would serve a three-year prison sentence. This was far better than the previous situation where they went to prison at the age of 20 and had no idea when they would be free again.

The political stability was a factor in another fine increase of 11 percent in Kingdom publishers, with a peak of 12,141. Twenty-three new congregations were formed, and many isolated groups of publishers were established when zealous Witnesses with the pioneer spirit moved out to serve  in places where the need was greater. The branch office directed these, as well as the nearly 100 special pioneers, first to the cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more where there were no Witnesses, and then, as these cities began to be worked, to the towns with a progressively smaller population.

Thus the work began to develop in smaller cities like Poitiers, Dijon, Annecy, Limoges and Rennes, the former capital of Brittany. One remarkable case was that of Caen in Normandy. Within a few years, in that city a tiny congregation composed of a handful of publishers became a large congregation and finally mothered many congregations in the surrounding area. Thus, instead of being concentrated in certain areas, particularly the mining regions of the north of France, the work began to spread out all over France.

The other big event in 1958 was the eight-day Divine Will International Assembly in New York during July and August. There were 641 French delegates present​—551 of whom traveled by air and 90 by boat—​nearly nine times as many as attended the 1953 New York assembly. Thus nearly one out of every 20 French publishers was in attendance​—a remarkable figure! This had a very strengthening and uniting effect on the work in the French field. These delegates heard Brother Knorr announce the creation of training schools in many branches, as well as the progress of the building of the new Bethel in France.

Strong echoes of this wonderful convention reached the rest of the French brothers at five district assemblies held in France in September 1958. A total of 677 new brothers were immersed at these assemblies. The powerful Resolution adopted in New York was also adopted at these  assemblies, and then, during the month of December, 1,670,000 tracts entitled “How Has Christendom Failed All Mankind?” were distributed throughout France. What a powerful witness that was!

NEW FRENCH BETHEL

In the early spring of 1959 the new Bethel was completed. Then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, April 17 to 19, the office and home were transferred from Villa Guibert to the new quarters at 81, rue du Point-du-Jour, Boulogne-Billancourt. The following Monday the new Bethel began to function.

The five-story building included a basement large enough to house a printery. The Kingdom Hall and an office were on the ground floor. On the second floor were the dining room and kitchen, with further office space available on that floor. A total of 24 bedrooms were on the third, fourth and fifth floors. With only 17 members of the Bethel family, there was plenty of space for expansion, as well as room to accommodate the Kingdom Ministry School that Brother Knorr first talked about at the 1958 international assembly. Toward the end of May Brother Knorr visited to see the new quarters, and on June 1 he gave a talk in the Pleyel Hall to the brothers of the Paris area, with 2,026 in attendance.

AN IMPORTANT LEGAL VICTORY

Two days later, on June 3, Brother Jontès received important news from a Paris lawyer. Back on July 2, 1957, Brother Jontès had been summoned to appear before an examining magistrate. He was accused of inciting young men to refuse military service, a charge that could have meant  prison sentences for him and for the brothers making up the board of directors of the Society’s French Association. Also, the French Association of Jehovah’s Witnesses was in danger of being banned.

The judicial inquiry of the matter continued through 1957 and the whole of 1958. Finally, the case was brought into court on February 16, 1959.  Brother Jontès was able to give a good witness. On March 2, 1959, a verdict of not guilty was rendered. However, the public prosecutor appealed this judgment, and the case came before the Eleventh Appeal Court on May 20, 1959. Then, on June 3, the Society’s lawyer phoned Brother Jontès informing him that the accused were again found not guilty. This was a wonderful theocratic victory, leaving the door open for further preaching of the Kingdom good news in France.

There was a fine increase of 17 percent in the average number of Witnesses in 1959, with a peak of 13,935 publishers. Also, the number of congregations rose from 235 to 254, including new congregations in Bastia, on the island of Corsica, and Rennes, in Brittany. The remarkable number of 2,106 persons were baptized, 525 of them at the six French district assemblies.

EXPANSION IN 1960

“The 1960 service year has been one of the most remarkable ones ever known for our brothers in France,” wrote the Society’s president Nathan H. Knorr. First of all, getting the new printery into operation, with its linotype, printing presses, folding and stitching machines, was a real milestone for the work in France. The first copies of Kingdom Ministry (Our Kingdom Service) came off the France branch presses in March 1960. From then on, all outside printing stopped; the Society’s local printery has taken care of the needs of the brothers, except for magazines, books and booklets, which are printed either in Brooklyn, in Switzerland or in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Continued expansion was enjoyed in other areas. The average number of Witnesses increased by 10  percent, reaching an all-time peak of 15,439. The Memorial attendance shot past the 20,000 mark for the first time, to 23,073. Thus, 26 new congregations were formed, bringing the number up to 280. By the end of the year there were just three towns in France with a population of over 20,000 that still remained virgin territory.

HIGHLIGHT OF 1961​—UNITED WORSHIPERS ASSEMBLY

The Parc des Princes Stadium at the western limits of Paris was engaged for the United Worshipers Assembly, August 3-6. However, just three months before, a military putsch in Algeria threatened to throw France into a horrible civil war. A right-wing terrorist campaign of bomb explosions throughout the country created a climate of apprehension. All large gatherings were banned by the government. Thus the contract for the Parc des Princes Stadium was canceled only a few weeks before the assembly was to begin. However, a special permit finally was obtained to hold the convention in the Colombes Stadium, just outside Paris.

This precarious situation, with such uncertainty regarding where the convention might be held would have made it hard even for experienced convention organizers. But this was France’s first outdoor assembly, and the first one for which the cafeteria arrangements (tents, tables, boilers, steam kettles, ovens, tray-washing machines, and so forth) were constructed and installed by the brothers. Finally, with the cooperation of all and the backing of God’s spirit, everything was set up and ready in time for the convention’s start.

It proved to be a remarkable gathering. Some 800 brothers arrived from Spain, where our work  was banned at the time. They were able to enjoy the meetings in their own language, and in freedom! Also, 80 people came from Portugal. Lectures were given simultaneously in French, Polish, Spanish and Portuguese.

Since no advertising was permitted, and the assembly site was outside of Paris, the brothers wondered if the attendance would surpass that of the 1955 international assembly in Paris. Well, it did, as 23,004 gathered to hear Brother Knorr’s public address “When All Nations Unite Under God’s Kingdom.” Remarkably, over 5 percent of those in attendance were baptized at the assembly, that is, 1,203!

Another 10-percent increase in the average number of publishers was realized in 1961, with a peak of 17,108 Witnesses being reached. And that year saw the inauguration of the Kingdom Ministry School in France, with the first class composed of circuit and district servants, being held in the French Bethel from March 13 to April 8. Then, over the years, French, Belgian and Swiss congregation servants and also brothers and sisters who were special pioneers attended this course.

100-PERCENT INCREASE IN SEVEN YEARS

In seven years’ time the average number of publishers in France more than doubled, from an average of 8,512 publishers in 1955 to an average of 17,299 in 1962. A marvelous ingathering of the “other sheep” had taken place! All towns of over 20,000 population by now had publishers in them. Also, 324 overseers and special pioneers had already attended the Kingdom Ministry School.

Brother Henri Geiger, who was baptized and began active service in 1920, lived to see this marvelous  growth from the few dozen who were preaching in 1920. After Brother Jontès was appointed to replace him as branch servant in 1951, Brother Geiger continued working at Bethel for a while. Then, as his health declined, he and his wife went to stay with their son. There, on August 29, 1962, he finished his earthly course. His life story appeared in the December 15, 1962, issue of The Watchtower.

SPECIAL PIONEERS ASSIGNED TO PARIS

Oddly enough, while the work was spreading rapidly throughout France, the increases in the French capital of Paris were not keeping pace. So it was decided to open a missionary home at 11, rue de Seine, Boulogne-Billancourt, not far from Bethel. The house there was purchased, and then enlarged and fixed up by pioneer brothers who were brought into Bethel for this purpose. On December 17, 1962, this missionary home began functioning, with special pioneers who lived there working in and around Paris. This large building also became a Bethel annex. The Society’s shipping department, which had been located in a warehouse in another part of Paris, was transferred here.

1963 TO 1966​—JEHOVAH’S BLESSING CONTINUES

Over the next few years, there continued to be abundant evidence of Jehovah’s blessings on his people in France. First, there was the around-the-world series of “Everlasting Good News” Assemblies in 1963. Although France did not host one of these conventions, it was marvelous to see some 11,000 French brothers​—more than half the publishers in the country—​attend one of these assemblies either in Milan, Italy, or in Munich, Germany.  Many special trains were organized to transport the delegates. And what fine spiritual treats they received, including the French-language release of the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures.

For the first time the number of Witnesses in France rose above 20,000 in 1963. And then in 1964 a 9-percent increase in publishers was realized, with over 2,000 persons being baptized! Also, the distribution of Awake! surpassed the 3,000,000 mark for the first time in 1964, and nearly 1,100 pioneers, including vacation (auxiliary) pioneers, had a share in placing these journals with the public.

In 1965 the Memorial service was attended by 34,862 persons, as the publishers reached a new peak of 22,933. The distribution of Awake! continued to skyrocket​—over 3,500,000 being distributed among the French public that year. There were now 380 congregations and 92 isolated groups in France, but still 94 towns with between 5,000 and 12,000 inhabitants had no Witnesses living in them. However, the witnessing work was progressing nicely in the large cities. There were 11 congregations in Paris, seven in Lyons and four in Nice and in Mulhouse, with several other large cities having three congregations.

An outstanding feature of 1966 was the organizing of 62 new congregations, bringing the total number for the country up to 442. These were divided into 30 circuits, and 3 districts. Also, five district assemblies were held that year, with a total attendance of 22,153 at the public meeting. At the Bordeaux assembly, the French brothers had the privilege of playing host to their brothers from Portugal. Since most of these brothers could  not afford to pay for accommodations, and there was not enough room for all of them in the brothers’ homes, a cinema was rented and converted into a big double dormitory for men and women, equipped with showers, washbasins, and so forth. They greatly appreciated the love shown by their French brothers. District servant Brother Marian Szumiga reported: “Many of them had tears in their eyes when the time came for them to leave.”

‘SPEEDING IT UP IN ITS OWN TIME’

Although the ingathering of the “other sheep” had made steady progress from 1963 to 1966, it can be said that Jehovah now really began ‘speeding it up in its own time.’ (Isa. 60:22) Not only was there a 10-percent increase in publishers in 1967, but the Memorial attendance jumped to a remarkable 41,274, with 143 partakers. As further indication of even greater increases ahead was the average number of 19,327 home Bible studies being conducted each month, a rise from 15,964 the year before. And the placements with the public of Awake! leaped to over 4,000,000 copies, and 55,446 new subscriptions were taken.

That summer nine “Disciple-making” District Assemblies were held in France, with a total attendance of 27,009. The Biblical dramas were particularly appreciated at these assemblies. As evidence of the speeded-up growth, 2,269 new disciples were baptized during the year, 960 of them at the district assemblies.

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CRISIS IN FRANCE

France was shaken by a very serious political and social crisis in the spring of 1968. The trouble started with student demonstrations, at first in Paris, at the famous Sorbonne and other universities  in the Paris area, then later the trouble spreading to universities and high schools throughout France. For a time, the Latin Quarter in Paris became a regular battleground. The students fought the police, who were trying to maintain order. Paving stones were torn up by the students and thrown at the police. Some of Paris’ famous boulevard trees were cut down by the students to form barricades, cars were burned and shop windows smashed. There were hundreds of injured on both sides.

Then the workers’ unions joined in, with their own demonstration marches, and with orders to the workers for a general strike. Thus, during May and June 1968, France was virtually paralyzed. There were no mail and no trains; the wheels of industry ground to a stop. Even air traffic was stopped. For a time, it looked as if the Gaullist regime would topple, but the communist and the noncommunist trade unions were divided, and also there was no cohesion between the workers and the students. So finally, after the government and the employers had made some spectacular concessions, the violence and the strikes came to an end. Elections were held at the end of June, and the Gaullist party came out with a large majority.

For about a month it was impossible for the branch to exchange correspondence with the congregations. But the brothers faithfully carried on their activity. Better still, the brothers took advantage of the time they had on their hands, due to the complete cessation of secular work, to put more time in the field service. For the first time in France the average hours per publisher rose to 12.

 PROVISIONS FOR SPIRITUAL STRENGTHENING

On May 7-12, 1968, just at the time of the worst student demonstrations, Brother Milton Henschel visited the France branch. His visit was most upbuilding, as he devoted much time to the family as a whole, giving a word of encouragement to each one, warming their hearts. He left Paris just in time, since a few days later air travel was paralyzed by a general strike. Brother Knorr was scheduled to visit the branch in June, but due to the situation, he could not get into the country.

Therefore, Brother Jontès and his assistant, Brother Jean-Marie Bockaert, met Brother Knorr in Belgium to discuss increasing the flow of spiritual food to the French brothers. As noted before, The Watchtower was banned in France. However, upbuilding articles were being provided in a 64-page monthly booklet. But now it was decided to publish a 48-page booklet twice a month. From January 1, 1969, onward this was done, meaning that the French brothers began receiving 96 pages of translated material each month rather than the 64. Brother Knorr authorized the purchase of a fourth printing press for the France branch to care for this extra work.

GETTING THE FRENCH “TRUTH” BOOK READY

The political events in May and June of 1968 had other unforeseen consequences for the Kingdom interests in France. Many may remember that it was in 1968 that the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life was published. It is now, next to the Bible, the most widely distributed book in the Western world, with over 95 million copies being distributed in 112 languages. Well, it was arranged to supply certain foreign-language  branches with early press proofs of the Truth book, so that they could get them translated into their respective languages. In this way the book could come out simultaneously in some of the world’s most widely used tongues.

Everything had gone well in the France branch; a translator succeeded in translating the book in one month’s time. Part of the translated manuscript was sent to Brooklyn and arrived safely. Another part of the manuscript was then sent off, when suddenly the postal strike began and the manuscript was blocked in the mails.

The manuscript was recopied, and it was taken to Brussels, Belgium. A shuttle service was then organized between Paris and Brussels by brothers who had cars, taking mail from the France branch to be sent from Belgium, and picking up mail for France that had been sent to Brussels. Thus the book was completed so that for the first time the French received a book at the same time as did their English-speaking brothers. True, only a few copies were available to show at the summer assemblies, but soon sufficient copies were available for all, and for distribution in the field.

THE “PEACE ON EARTH” ASSEMBLY

The highlight of 1969 was the international “Peace on Earth” Assembly held at Colombes Stadium near Paris. It was part of a chain of such conventions, the first of which took place in early July in the United States. A total of 334 French delegates flew the Atlantic for this seven-day gathering. But then, August 5-10, the assembly came to France.

Arrangements were made in the stadium for a Portuguese convention, as well as a gathering for  the Polish-speaking brothers from France​—altogether 78 nationalities were represented. Besides the 2,731 at the Portuguese meeting and 600 at the Polish, some 5,000 came from Belgium, 1,000 from Switzerland, over 1,300 from the United States, 200 from Canada, 170 from England, and 120 from Africa. There were special English-language sessions, and over 800 attended them.

The Portuguese brothers had their finest assembly up to that time. Their previous peak attendance at any convention in the history of the work in Portugal was 825 in 1968 at Toulouse, France. It was estimated that a large percent of the Portuguese brothers were able to attend the Paris convention, and they certainly enjoyed themselves. There were 65 delegates from one Lisbon congregation of 90 publishers! One sister saved funds for two years to have enough money to make the trip and return. In attendance were brothers from Angola, the Azores, the Cape Verde Islands, Madeira and Mozambique.

The convention opened with fine weather, and there was pleasant sunshine every day. This was a blessing, because the Portuguese, the Polish, and half of the French audience were out in the open, unprotected from the elements. So what would be the convention’s combined peak attendance?

Well, on Sunday for the public talk, “The Approaching Peace of a Thousand Years,” 47,480 were present​—more than double the attendance at the previous Colombes Stadium assembly in 1961! Yet even more remarkable was the fact that 3,619 persons were baptized, or about 10 percent of the regular average attendance during the convention! This growth of Jehovah’s Witnesses was of  concern to the clergy, as noted by the following comments in the popular Paris evening paper France-Soir of August 6, 1969:

“What worries the clergy of other religions is not the means of spectacular distribution of publications used by Jehovah’s witnesses, but, rather, their making converts. Each of Jehovah’s witnesses has the obligation to witness or proclaim his faith by using the Bible from house to house, working according to the direction of the organization. . . . The doctrines of Jehovah’s witnesses are based on the Bible. . . . They believe in one God (Jehovah), reject the trinity, immortality of the soul, the existence of hell and of purgatory.”

The attention given to the convention by the press, radio and television was unprecedented. In view of the delicate situation in France, nothing was done to draw newsmen to the convention. However, they came spontaneously. The first morning about 10 newspapermen were there, and the following day articles with photographs appeared on the front page of several widely read French morning papers. On Thursday, August 7, there was fine television coverage, including a nearly three-minute sequence on the National News at 8 p.m., the most widely followed program in France. Everything that was presented was favorable.

The same day, the influential Le Monde gave us a 36-column-inch (.9 m) coverage on its religious news page, devoting only nine column inches (.23 m) to items about the Catholic Church! Favorable reports got into all the best French newspapers​—not into special editions sold around the stadium for the Witnesses—​but into the national editions, sold all over France and throughout the French-speaking world. In all, the French  press printed 873 column inches (over 22 m) of articles and photographs!

Also, the Bethel family printed two assembly reports that were released during the convention, first a 16-page report and then one of 32 pages, along with photographs. This was the first time a French-language report on an assembly in France had been published. These reports proved to be very useful also after the convention to show people the size and scope of Jehovah’s organization.

The new songbook, “Singing and Accompanying Yourselves with Music in Your Hearts,” also was published in French in 1969. The brothers received it shortly before the Colombes convention, which gave them the opportunity to learn the songs that were to be used during the convention.

THE “TRUTH” BOOK SPEEDS UP THE WORK

An average of 29,754 publishers was reached in 1969, a 12-percent increase for the year. The Truth book, released the year before, had much to do with the grand increases. An average of 25,949 home Bible studies were conducted each week, and 60,457 attended the Memorial, in comparison with 49,086 the previous year. And 4,583 were baptized, more than double the peak number baptized in any one year up to that time!

This rapid expansion continued. A 15-percent increase in publishers was enjoyed in 1970, followed by one of 14 percent in 1971. This meant that the number of publishers leaped from 26,614 in 1968 to an average of 39,026 in 1971​—an increase of over 12,000 in just three years! And 80,293 attended the Memorial in 1971, over 30,000 more than three years before! Also, new congregations  were being formed in France at the rate of more than one every week​—53 in 1971—​for a total of 636 in the country. Surely the Truth book was having a grand part in helping to gather the Lord’s sheep!

TOULOUSE ASSEMBLY PREPARATION

What was to be a highlight of 1971 was the “Divine Name” District Assembly in Toulouse, France. Some 5,000 were expected at the French sessions, 5,000 at the Portuguese and 15,000 at the Spanish, totaling 25,000 in all. For this trilingual assembly every available hotel room and camping site in and around Toulouse was reserved. But then the unexpected occurred.

An outbreak of cholera in Spain. There was talk of preventive measures. But the authorities were very hesitant about banning the assembly because this decision would be unpopular with the local tradespeople. Also, they were afraid the Society would sue them for damages since contracts had been signed and tremendous preparations had been made. In time, however, as assembly preparation continued to go ahead, the word finally was received that the assembly had been officially prohibited. Brother Jean-Claude Rézer, the assembly overseer, observed:

“Really the brothers were wonderful right up to the end when the ban was announced. . . . Yes, there were tears, but in a spirit of devotion everyone recognized the need to get back to work to pull down everything that had been built in vain. The brothers in charge of the different departments were equal to their task. The brothers from Spain and Portugal backed us up in the dismantling work, while working at the same time toward holding their assembly elsewhere.”

 BLESSINGS DESPITE BAN

Practically all the French-speaking brothers were able to attend one of the other assemblies in France. And nearly 900 brothers from Portugal traveled by 12 buses, one chartered airplane and a number of private cars to an “emergency” program in London. In all, a total of 48,533 were present for the “Divine Name” assemblies in France, and the marvelous number of 2,084 persons were baptized.

Thus 1971 was a tremendous year of theocratic expansion in France. The year was also marked by a particularly fine provision, the Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the French language. This had not been available in French since before World War II.

A BETHEL ANNEX BECOMES NECESSARY

By 1972 the French Bethel in the western Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt had become too small, necessitating an annex. Space was particularly needed for the shipping department. In 1959, when the Boulogne Bethel was completed, 85,000 books per year were dispatched, whereas by 1972 this figure had risen to 1,094,231, not to mention booklets, forms and other printed items.

It seemed judicious to build this annex somewhere between Paris and Le Havre, a port in western France where the literature arrived from the United States. In November 1970, a 73- by 33-meter (240 ft. by 108 ft.) plot of ground was located at a small town in Normandy called Louviers, about 105 kilometers (65 mi.) equidistant from Paris and Le Havre. It took about 18 months to overcome administrative difficulties, and so the title deeds were not signed until April 28, 1972. The actual building was commenced  the following month and completed in December of the same year.

The building is a very attractive prefabricated, two-story structure, with the exterior composed of facing bricks and green enameled paneling. A spacious printery and shipping department, along with kitchen, cold-storage rooms, and a pleasant dining room are on the first floor. The laundry, library and 22 bedrooms are on the second floor. The structure altogether has about 2,044 square meters (22,000 ft.²) of floor space.

The printery was transferred to Louviers on May 29, 1973. It was an unusual sight on that rainy day in Boulogne to see the printing presses and other machinery hoisted up and loaded onto enormous trucks in the street outside Bethel. The car and truck drivers, who were thus obliged to wait, were so curious that they forgot to sound their horns, which, although forbidden, is most frequent in the Paris traffic jams! Eventually the four printing presses, the linotype, the trimmer, and the folding machine arrived safely at Louviers, and were already in use two days later.

Dedication day was fixed for Saturday, June 9, 1973, when 157 were present for the program. Several brothers gave a retrospect of the work in France. It was most thrilling to realize how the work had increased remarkably, with the number of persons being baptized in 1972 alone exceeding 5,000 for the first time. Also, the brother in charge of the printery briefly explained that in 1960, 291,530 magazines had been printed, whereas 1972 saw a production of 1,771,300! And the total number of printed items increased from 4,161,994 in 1960 to 32,043,610 in 1972.

 “DIVINE VICTORY” INTERNATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Again Colombes Olympic Stadium was to be the site of an international convention. On January 1, 1973, the assembly committee was set up, seven months in advance of the assembly’s start. What a tremendous task it was to oversee the transforming of the stadium into a gigantic Kingdom Hall! But what a success was made of the job!

 Thousands of potted plants that horticulturists who were Witnesses had cultivated over a period of months adorned the center of the stadium, around the platform. An artificial lake occupied by two living flamingos was also a pleasant decoration. The “Racing Club of France,” the owner of the stadium, used the decor to illustrate its monthly sports magazine cover.

Everything was ready for the opening day, Wednesday, August 1. A literal swarm of humans invaded the stadium. The French newspapers, often very cutting and ironic toward Jehovah’s Witnesses, were full of praise for the attentive crowd. The Catholic newspaper La Croix commented:

“Even though they are widely spoken of because of their active house-to-house proselytism, Jehovah’s Witnesses have only had moderate success up until now in France. Nevertheless, their assembly in Colombes was really an impressive sight due to their flawless organization and Bible dramas, along with their sense of responsibility.”

The journalistic world hailed this international assembly as the event of the summer. Le Monde stated: “The stadium was filled to overflowing with an attentive and studious crowd that would have made any political party jealous.”

Even the men delivering the newspapers were not indifferent to the conventioners’ good behavior. The Parisien Libéré deliveryman deposited his newspapers in heaps on the sidewalk with cans for the money, leaving just one man to keep an eye on things. The delegates, surprised at being able to help themselves, asked him if he was not afraid of being shortchanged. He replied: “Oh, no. We did the same in 1969.”

 On Friday, August 3, a total of 2,703 candidates presented themselves for baptism, answering, “Oui” to the questions propounded to them. It was an unforgettable moment as they left in an orderly manner for the swimming pool only about 500 meters (550 yd.) away. The Journal du Dimanche commented on this outstanding event:

“Not just anyone can become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, suddenly discovering their ‘truth’ like a bolt out of the blue. Patience, time, courage and extremely deep Christian faith are necessary. But one must also accept the precepts set out in Bible laws.”

The assemblies in Colombes have been landmarks insofar as progress in the French field is concerned. Here 23,004 people were in attendance in 1961, and in 1969 there were 47,480 present. What about 1973? Well, when the time came for the Sunday public talk, “Divine Victory​—Its Meaning for Distressed Humanity,” there was the astounding number of 60,241 overflowing the huge stadium!

THE “NEW WORLD TRANSLATION”​—IN FRENCH

Back in 1963 the New World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures was produced in the French language. Finally, eleven years later, the completed New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in French was most enthusiastically received by the brothers. In France the importance of this new publication took on special proportions. Why so? The situation calls for a little history.

The popes called France “the eldest daughter of the Church,” and even today 85 percent of the French population claim to be Catholics. When  you consider that before the French Revolution in 1789 there was one priest for every 110 inhabitants, and more recently, in 1970, there was still one priest, monk or nun for 297 residents, it thus becomes clear that the Roman Catholic Church has been in a very good position to teach the French people the Bible.

However, the priests for centuries enforced the rule set down by the Council of Toulouse in 1229: “The laity must not possess the Old and New Testament books.” True, since the 1950’s several Catholic Bibles, such as The Jerusalem Bible, have been published in French, but as they are relatively expensive, few homes have acquired one. Thus, with the release of the New World Translation in French, even the poorest of French families have been able to obtain a complete Bible. Since 1974 nearly 800,000 copies of this fine translation have been shipped out to the congregations for distribution in the field.

PROVIDING A MOTIVATING HOPE

Although the lives of the French people have generally improved from a material standpoint, many are disappointed and confused, lacking any real stability in their lives. They feel hopeless when beset with problems, for their religion has not provided them spiritual strength and true confidence. The Kingdom message often has a transforming effect on such persons that is truly beneficial. To relate just one example:

A woman who had suffered a nervous breakdown because of the many problems she faced, decided to commit suicide and take her three children with her into death. However, before putting her terrible plan into action, she explained her distress  to God in prayer. She cleaned up her apartment, wrote farewell letters to her husband and mother and took the trash can down, so as to leave everything in perfect order.

But on the way down the stairs she met two Witnesses, who talked to her and arranged for a return visit. Upon returning to her apartment, she thought about that appointment, and decided to postpone her suicide for a week. One week later the Witnesses were on time, and after a short introduction a study was started with the Truth book. A few weeks later, the lady was in such a bad state of health that she had to be taken to a hospital. During the five weeks she was there, the Witnesses regularly visited her to inquire about her health.

Once she was out of the hospital, the study was continued, and the lady did all she could to attend the meetings with her children, even though she lived a long way from the Kingdom Hall. God’s Word was so stimulating she witnessed to everyone she met, with excellent results. Yes, not only was she baptized, but her mother and husband both studied and eventually started out in the preaching work!

Happily, people of all ages and walks of life are learning Bible truths, and their lives are being transformed as they realize the certain prospect of enjoying God’s gift of everlasting life. Thus in 1974 there were 8,689 new ones who responded to God’s goodness and were baptized. That means on an average, day and night, every hour a person in France was becoming a baptized Christian! Over 53,000 Witnesses in 1974 were active in the preaching and disciple-making work each month,  conducting more than 36,000 Bible studies. Also, that year 110,330 attended the Memorial.

BAN ON “THE WATCHTOWER” LIFTED

In 1975 there was a landmark in the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in France. It was the lifting of the 22-year ban on the Watchtower magazine. Beginning in January the French brothers started receiving their magazines for study purposes. Then, a few weeks later, they were overjoyed to have The Watchtower available also for door-to-door witnessing activity.

PROVIDING FOR THE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF ALL

You may recall that in 1952 two pioneers started the preaching work on Corsica, which is part of France. Well, 15 years later, in 1967, there were two congregations there. In 1969 a third congregation was formed, and a circuit assembly was held on the island, for the first time, in 1970. Since then, several special pioneers have been sent to the island, and in 1978 there were 431 publishers organized into nine congregations.

The small independent principality of Monaco on the Mediterranean seacoast comes under the jurisdiction of the France branch. As you may know, this is the home of the famous Monte Carlo gambling resort. Although house-to-house witnessing among Monaco’s 27,000 inhabitants is forbidden, publishers from the French Beausoleil Congregation have regularly preached there. By 1978 there were seven active Witnesses in Monaco.

Also, the spiritual needs of foreign-speaking people are being cared for. Thus by 1975 there were 17 Portuguese and 16 Spanish congregations in France, not to mention one Greek and two  German congregations. In addition, there were 24 Portuguese and 12 Spanish groups associated with French congregations. How encouraging it was to see that all these people from different parts of the earth were able to learn the truth in their own tongues!

FURTHER KINGDOM MINISTRY SCHOOL CLASSES

As noted earlier, the Kingdom Ministry School was inaugurated in France in March 1961. Its purpose was to help elders fulfill their Scriptural responsibilities. By December of 1971, a total of 93 classes had enjoyed the benefits of the course, which, after the 28th class, was changed from a month-long to a two-week course.

After being suspended for over three years, in February 1975 the school was begun again, a new textbook being used for instruction. During that year 2,043 elders benefited from this new course. Finally, during a six-week period in 1978, a revised two-day course was attended by France’s more than 5,300 elders. Did the elders benefit from it? One elder answered that question well, explaining: “We thank Jehovah’s attentive organization for giving us ever clearer enlightenment for upbuilding our brothers in the congregation.”

SECOND ANNEX IS ADDED

In 1973, when the annex at Louviers was dedicated, it was assumed it would care for the needs in France until the “great tribulation.” Even when a plot of land was purchased at Incarville (a village just outside Louviers) in 1974, there was no thought of building an annex, only a Kingdom Hall. But the rapid growth of the Kingdom work soon changed our thinking. Finally, on April 2, 1976, a permit was received for erecting a two-story  building with 2,483 square meters (26,727 ft.²) of floor space.

A circular was sent out to every congregation in France asking for volunteers who had some building experience. Since the brothers were not very satisfied with the prefabricated building at Louviers, they decided to construct the new building themselves. A brother with building experience offered to coordinate the work as part of a building committee, supervised by the Branch Committee and the Governing Body.

Work progressed according to schedule until December 8, 1976, when the Governing Body suggested putting in a third floor, which would add 10 extra bedrooms. Thus, our architect drew up new plans, which were submitted for examination. We were granted 390 square meters (4,198 ft.²) more space, bringing the total floor space for the building to 2,873 square meters (30,925 ft.²).

Finally, the new annex was completed, and on Saturday, May 13, 1978, Brother Raymond Franz of the Governing Body gave the dedication talk in French. The Incarville annex now houses the shipping department and also accommodates Bethel brothers who work at Louviers. Almost all the 34 bedrooms on the second and third floors are already occupied. At present the French Bethel family totals 136 members, of which 46 are at Boulogne and 90 at Louviers-Incarville.

NEW PUBLICATIONS IN ABUNDANCE

In recent years a tremendous amount of translation work has been accomplished, providing in the French language practically all the publications that are in English. Starting in 1976, even the yearly Watch Tower Publications Index has been published in French, it being the first language  to have this Index, other than English. Also, the cassette recordings of Bible books have been produced in French, with over 12,000 sets of the book of John being distributed in 28 countries.

THE “VICTORIOUS FAITH” CONVENTIONS

Since Colombes Stadium had already been filled to maximum capacity in 1973, the branch committee organized six “Victorious Faith” assemblies throughout France for 1978. And it was a good thing they did, for the total attendance reached 83,419​—23,178 more than in 1973!

On Friday morning, delegates shared their victorious faith by witnessing to the local inhabitants. A young woman in Paris welcomed Jehovah’s Witnesses, saying: “Your visit is providential. I absolutely needed to talk to someone. I have already had three nervous breakdowns and even wanted to commit suicide.” She then confided to the Witnesses that she felt the need to draw  nearer to God. Arrangements were made for her to come along with a friend to the public talk.

PROSPECTS FOR GREATER GROWTH

People are still responding to the Kingdom message. This is reflected by the fact that in attendance at the 1979 Memorial in France were 133,584 persons. This is 9,810 more than were present just two years before. And the fact that this Memorial attendance is double the approximately 67,000 Kingdom publishers in France shows the tremendous prospect for continued growth of the Kingdom work.

Already by the end of 1978 there were 1,188 congregations, 60 circuits and six districts in France. There are 28 congregations in Paris itself, and 116 in the area immediately around Paris, making a total of 144. There are 17 congregations in Marseilles, 11 in Lyons, 10 in Nice, 8 in Nantes, 8 in Toulouse, 7 in Grenoble, 7 in Mulhouse, 5 in Caen, and many other French towns have two or three congregations.

When we reflect on how the work has grown from just a handful of courageous and resolute Christians at the dawn of the century, we can truly see that Jehovah has blessed his people. We do hope that this account will encourage all those reading it to forge ahead in Jehovah’s service, keeping in mind that the events set forth herein all go to prove the truthfulness of the apostle Paul’s words: “For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.”​—2 Cor. 13:8.

 [Map on page 37]

(For fully formatted text, see publication)

France

ENGLISH CHANNEL

BELGIUM

GERMANY

LUXEMBOURG

VOSGES

LORRAINE

ALSACE

SWITZERLAND

ITALY

ALPS

MONACO

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

CORSICA

PYRENEES

SPAIN

PARIS

LOIRE RIVER

BRITTANY

NORMANDY

SAAR

Roubaix

Bruay

Sin-le-Noble

Lens

Douai

Denain

Le Havre

Caen

Louviers

Strasbourg

Nancy

Rennes

Angers

Nantes

Poitiers

Moulins

Limoges

Bordeaux

Bayonne

Toulouse

Marseilles

Bastia

Nice

Valence

Beauvène

Clermont-Ferrand

Grenoble

Lyons

Annecy

Dijon

Besançon

Mulhouse

 [Picture on page 41]

1900

Adolphe Weber, a Swiss woodcutter, started the preaching work in France

 [Picture on page 73]

1931

(Background) Paris office from 1931 to 1940

(Foreground) Brother Rutherford with staff from French and Swiss offices

[Picture on page 76]

1932

About 100 motorcycles were used in France to spread the Kingdom message

[Picture on page 81]

1933

The Society’s stand at a Paris exhibition. In the thirties, several books won gold medals

[Picture on page 84]

1937

Sin-le-Noble Congregation publishers with the sound car they used

 [Picture on page 104]

1945

The reunion of Emma, Adolphe, and Simone Arnold after years of separation during the second world war

 [Picture on page 121]

1948

Placard witnessing on bicycles advertising public talks

[Picture on page 125]

1951

PARIS​—First postwar international assembly. 10,456 attended from 28 lands

[Picture on page 136]

1959

New Bethel completed in Boulogne-Billancourt

[Picture on page 152]

1972

Bethel annex built in Louviers

[Picture on page 160]

1978

Second Bethel annex, built in Incarville, Normandy