Plans for even larger conventions in Poland were under way when, on May 12, 1989, the government granted legal recognition to Jehovah’s Witnesses as a religious association. Within three months, three international conventions were in session—in Chorzów, Poznan, and Warsaw—with a combined attendance of 166,518. Amazingly, thousands of Witnesses from what were then the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) and Czechoslovakia were able to secure needed permission to travel and were in attendance. Was the disciple-making work of Jehovah’s Witnesses yielding results in these lands where atheism had been strongly advocated by the State for decades? The answer was evident when 6,093, including many youths, presented themselves for water immersion at those conventions.

The public could not help but see that the Witnesses were different—in a very wholesome way. In the public press, they read statements like the following: “Those who worship Jehovah God—as they themselves say—greatly value their gatherings, which are certainly a manifestation of unity among them. . . . As regards orderliness, peacefulness, and cleanliness, convention participants are examples to imitate.” (Życie Warszawy)

[Pictures on page 504]

Some of the baptism candidates in Chorzów, Poland, in 1989