since he was so young and the end of the war was so near, yet despite the great pain I felt, I offered a prayer of thanksgiving to Jehovah. I could now say: ‘Thank you, Jehovah, that he has fallen on the battlefield for you.’

“Then came the upheaval of 1945. Joyfully I welcomed my three remaining children back into my arms. The two youngest ones had been taken out of the juvenile home and had been living with a labor office director for the last three years, where they were to be reared in the sense of National Socialism. I was permitted to visit them only once every fourteen months and to speak to them for several hours, but always with someone else present. Despite this, my two girls were once able to whisper to me that they had a little testament which they kept carefully hidden. When they were alone one of them would listen at the door to make sure no one was coming and the other would read several verses. How happy I was!

“Now in 1945 the faithful brothers began returning from their imprisonment. In Flensburg a ship arrived with many brothers and sisters mainly from the East. At that time a period of intense activity began. There it was that I became acquainted with my present husband, Brother Josef Scharner. He, too, had been robbed of nine years of freedom. Truly, both of us had gone through difficult times and both of us had the same desire to spend our last remaining years in serving Jehovah with all our strength.”

MAKING DISCIPLES EVEN IN A DEATH CELL

That it would be possible to make disciples even in the death cells sounds hard to believe, but Brother Massors reports such an experience in a letter to his wife dated September 3, 1943:

“During 1928/30/32 I pioneered in Prague. Lectures were delivered and the city was covered with literature. At that time I met a political lecturer from the government named Anton Rinker. I talked to him a long time. He accepted a Bible and several books but explained that he had no time to study such things, since he must look after his family and make a living. He said, however, that his relatives were all very religiously inclined, although they did not go to church.

“It must have been in 1940/41 when a new partner was sent into my cell, as was often the case. He was very depressed, but everyone is at first. Only at the time when the cell door flies shut behind him does a person suddenly realize where he is. ‘My name is Anton Rinker and I am from Prague,’ my new cellmate told me. I recognized him at once and said: ‘Anton, yes, Anton, do you not know me?’ ‘Yes, you do look familiar, but . . .’ It took only a little while for him to remember that I had been at his place in 1930/32 and that he had taken a Bible and several books from me at the time. ‘What!’ said Anton, ‘you are here because of your faith? That I cannot understand; none of the ministers do anything like that. What do you believe actually?’ He was to find out.

“‘But why don’t the clergy tell us these things?’ was his question. ‘This is the truth. Now I know why I had to come to this prison. I must say, dear Franz, that before I entered this cell I prayed to God that he might send me to a believing person, otherwise I was thinking of committing suicide. . . .’

“Weeks and months passed. Then Anton told me: ‘Before I leave this world, may God help my wife and my children find the truth, so that I can leave in peace.’ . . . One day he received a letter from his wife in which she wrote:

“‘ . . . How happy we would be if only you could read the Bible and books that you bought from that German man years ago. Everything has turned out just as the books said. This is the truth for which we never had time.’”

Part 3​—Germany

SPIRITUAL FOOD IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS

During those years when the brothers, especially those in concentration camps, were “isolated” they had very little opportunity to obtain a Bible or other publications. Just that much more effort was put into recalling the contents of important Watchtower articles when they had to stand for hours in the courtyard, or evenings when they had a little quiet in their barracks. Their joy was especially great when it was possible in some way to obtain a Bible.

Jehovah sometimes used interesting ways to get a Bible into the hands of his servants. Franz Birk from Renchen (Black Forest) recalls that one day in Buchenwald he was asked by a worldly prisoner if he would like to have a Bible. He had found one in the paper factory where he worked. Of course Brother Birk accepted the offer thankfully.

Brother Franke also remembers how, in 1943, an aged SS man who had joined this organization only under the pressure of the times went to a number of clergymen on his day off asking for a Bible. All of them said they regretted not having a Bible anymore. It was evening when he finally found a clergyman who told him that he had one small Luther Bible that he had kept for special reasons. He was so happy that an SS man should manifest interest in the Bible, however,