Holocaust

[Guest Kurt]

 

Else Woieziek, a Jehovah's Witness sentenced to death and executed in 1944. Düsseldorf, Germany, 1937–38

Heinrich Heine, a shop assistant from Neuss, Germany. He was placed in protective custody for participating in illegal activities as a Jehovah's Witness. Düsseldorf, Germany, 1937–38

Wolfgang Kusserow, standing third from the left in the last portrait taken of the family, was one of eleven children of Frans and Hilda Kusserow, devout Jehovah's Witnesses. 

Last Letter of Wolfgang Kusserow. On this date in 1940, 25-year-old Wilhelm Kusserow was executed by firing squad at Münster Prison in Germany
One more time I am given the opportunity to write you. Well, now I your third son and brother, shall leave you tomorrow early in the morning. Be not sad, the time will come when we shall all be together again. Those who will sow with tears, will reap with joy. "Those sowing seed with tears will reap even with a joyful cry."
How great the joy will be, when we see all of us again, although it is not easy now to overcome all this, but through belief and hope in the King and His Kingdom we conquer the worst. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor governments nor things now here nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creation will be able to separate us from God's love that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:38-39).

So we confidently look forward to the future.

Dear Papa, I am sorry that I was not allowed to visit you early in December. Exactly one year ago from tomorrow I saw you and Hildegard for the last time. In the meantime I have visited Lenchen. It was a special joy for me to see Mummy once again. Well, dear Mummy, Annemarie read me your dear letter during her visit... It is fine that you are busy in the baking factory (prison), so you are at least in a warm room and you have something to eat. Lenchen is now in the concentration camp.

Thus we are all separated, but everybody is steady. Yes we shall be rewarded for all of this. Read this in James 1:12: "Happy is the man who keeps on enduring trials, because on becoming approved he will receive the crown of life, which Jehovah promised to those who continue loving Him."
Dear Annemarie, once more special thanks to you for all your endeavors. May this our Lord reward you. I have you all constantly in mind. That was a life, when we were all at home together! - And suddenly separated!

Well Satan knows that his time is short. Therefore, he tries with all his power to lead astray from God men of good will, but he will have no success. We know that our faith will be victorious.

In this faith and this conviction I leave you.

A last greeting from this old world in the hope of seeing you again soon in a New World.

This old Opel car was used by the Kusserows when they traveled house to house handing out religious tracts.

Helene Gotthold with her two children, Gerd and Gisela, in 1936. Arrested many times for defying the Nazi ban on Jehova's Witness activities, Helene was convicted, condemned to death, and beheaded on December 8, 1944, in Berlin. Gerd and Gisela survived. 

Robert Wagemann, a physically disabled Jehovah's Witness child, sits on his hospital bed.