OCTOBER 9, 2013 | GERMANY
SELTERS, Germany—A monument honoring the late Max
Liebster, one of Jehovah’s Witnesses who endured over five years of
imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, was publicly dedicated on
June 21, 2013, in Lautertal-Reichenbach. The mayor and other city
officials unveiled the monument in a ceremony attended by local residents as
well as Mr. Liebster’s widow, Simone Liebster, who is also one of
Jehovah’s Witnesses.
As a Jew living in Germany during Hitler’s Nazi regime,
Mr. Liebster was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 and thereafter suffered
in five different concentration camps: Sachsenhausen, Neuengamme, Auschwitz,
Buna, and Buchenwald. Eight of his family members perished in the camps. Among
them was his father, whose body he personally carried to the Sachsenhausen
crematorium.
Mr. Liebster became acquainted with fellow prisoners
who were Jehovah’s Witnesses in the concentration camps. He was baptized as one
of Jehovah’s Witnesses after he regained his freedom in 1945. According to one
of the bronze plaques affixed to his monument, Mr. Liebster’s faith “gave
[him] the strength and will to survive.” He lived until the age of 93 before
passing away in 2008.
The invitation to the unveiling ceremony states that
Mr. Liebster “was firmly convinced that Christian values could bring out
the best in people.” Wolfram Slupina, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in
Germany, comments: “We are glad that the bravery of one of our many fellow
worshippers who took a conscientious stand in the face of religious intolerance
is being commemorated. This monument is truly a testament to the power of the
Bible’s message of peace and unity, to which Jehovah’s Witnesses strive to be
loyal.”
Media Contact(s):
International: J. R. Brown, Office of Public
Information, tel. +1 718 560 5000
Germany: Wolfram Slupina, tel.
+49 6483 41 3110
LEARN MORE AT www.jw.org
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