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Joyful in a Joyless World

“AT ITS worst, this has been Satan’s century,” began an editorial in The New York Times of January 26, 1995. “In no previous age have people shown so great an aptitude, and appetite, for killing millions of other people for reasons of race, religion or class.”

The 50th anniversary of the liberation of innocent victims imprisoned in the Nazi death camps prompted editorials such as the foregoing. However, the same type of savage killings still take place in parts of Africa and Eastern Europe.

Pogroms, ethnic cleansings, tribal slaughters—whatever they are called—result in great sorrow. Yet, amid such mayhem rise strong voices of joy. For example, let us look at Germany in the 1930’s.

By April of 1935, Jehovah’s Witnesses were banned from all civil service jobs by Hitler and his Nazi party. The Witnesses were also arrested, imprisoned, and sent to concentration camps because they maintained Christian neutrality. (John 17:16) In late August of 1936, there were mass arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thousands of them were sent to concentration camps, where most of them remained until 1945 if they survived. How, though, did the Witnesses react to the inhuman treatment meted out to them in the camps? Surprising as it may seem, they were able to maintain joy despite their joyless surroundings.

“A Rock in the Mud”

British historian Christine King interviewed a Catholic woman who was in the camps. “She used a phrase I’ve never forgotten,” said Dr. King. “She talked in great detail about the horror of the life, the disgusting conditions in which she lived. And she said she knew Witnesses, and those Witnesses were a rock in the mud. Some firm place in all that slime. She said that they were the only people who didn’t spit when the guards walked past. They were the only people who didn’t deal with all this by hatred but by love and hope and the feeling that there was a purpose.”

What enabled Jehovah’s Witnesses to be ‘rocks in the mud’? Unshakable faith in Jehovah God and his Son, Jesus Christ. Therefore, Hitler’s efforts failed to stifle their Christian love and joy.

Listen as two camp survivors reminisce five decades after they successfully met this test of faith. Says one: “I bubble over with joy in knowing that I had the unique privilege of proving my love and gratefulness to Jehovah under the cruelest of circumstances. No one forced me to do this! On the contrary, the ones who tried to force us were our enemies who tried by threats to get us to obey Hitler more than God—but without success! Not only am I happy now but, because of a good conscience, I was happy even while behind prison walls.”—Maria Hombach, 94 years old.

Another Witness states: “I look back on my days of imprisonment with gratefulness and joy. The years spent under Hitler in prisons and concentration camps were difficult and full of tests. But I would not want to have missed them, for they taught me to trust in Jehovah absolutely.”—Johannes Neubacher, 91 years old.

“To trust in Jehovah absolutely”—that was the secret of the joy experienced by Jehovah’s Witnesses. Thus, they are joyful, although they are surrounded by a joyless world. Their joy was evident at the “Joyful Praisers” District Conventions in recent months. Let us briefly review these joyous gatherings.

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Maria Hombach