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Communists Fail to Convert Witnesses

◆ “The full weight of Communist opposition fell on Jehovah’s Witnesses, a sect which has long had a following in Eastern Europe and so was well known in some sections of the expellee population. The Witnesses had also been a target for Nazi hostility, and many hundreds of them perished in Dachau and other concentration camps. During 1950, the Communists banned the sect in eastern Germany, on the ground that it was a branch of the American ‘espionage system,’ even though specially favorable treatment had been accorded it in Poland. It is believed that by the close of the year nearly eight hundred Witnesses were serving terms in prisons and in labor camps, and that life sentences had been imposed on thirteen of its principal advocates. . . .

◆ “Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the end of the world is rapidly approaching, on the basis of their deductions from Holy Writ, and therefore indulge in prophecies concerning the impending demise of our world, due to sin and frailty. Communism believes in prophecy, too, . . . But Jehovah’s Witnesses, confident that the Word of God had been vouchsafed for them, are incorrigible. No ‘patriots’ or ‘democrats’ have ever been reported from their ranks.”—Religion Behind the Iron Curtain, Shuster.