The Nazi Persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: We had a wonderful family life. My parents were Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were called at the time, and we were all brought up in the Christian faith. At the age of six I got to school. I enjoyed going to school. I had a very nice teacher, and my dream was to become a teacher as well later.

Hitler promised them, when he comes to power in Austria, the farmers will be able to get rid of their debts and remain on the farms. That’s understandable, why there were so many farmers interested in National Socialism in our area.

On March 12, 1938, Hitler marched into Austria, but we didn’t get to know that on that same day. No radio at the time. Next morning, my mom and myself, we were in the courtyard. We had to help our parents before going to school. I had to assist my mother as the youngest. And there was a footpath a little above, and a neighbor arrived and when he saw us in the yard, he stopped, and hollered down there, “The Führer marched in!” My mother said, “This is not a reason to jubilate, and apart from that, it is not Hitler who is our führer, but Jesus Christ.”

When I went to school that day, a lot of excitement, everybody was in the schoolyard. The swastika flag was already there, and the headmaster stood in front of the flag and made a short speech, in the following sense: “Now we can forget the bad times of unemployment, everyone will get a job, no one will suffer from hunger, and the farmers will do better. Short and sweet, we are moving into the golden age. And all that we owe to our leader, Adolf Hitler.” At the end he said, “From now on when we come to school, we won’t say good morning, Guten Tag, or Grüss Gott. From now on we will only do the Heil Hitler salute.” But our parents taught us not to do the Hitler salute because the Bible says that salvation comes through God and not through any man.

A lot of things changed for me now. When I came to school… classrooms were on the first and second floor. The headmaster stood at the staircase, and I said, “Good morning, Mr. Headmaster.” He said, “Hermine go out again and come back one more time and do the Hitler salute.” I went out and I came back in again. I said, “Good morning,” again. [Laughter] So my fellow students started making fun of me. One girl said in a derogatory way, “You’re a Bible Student.” And another said, “You’re a Jew.” And a boy said, “Your brother Hans should be hanged,” because he refused training to go to war. That was very, very hard.

On my first report card that I got when I was eight -- it was the final report for the second class -- I got the worst grade for behavior, which was six. Before that, before Hitler came, there were only four grades and then they had six.

At the age of ten everyone had to go to the Hitlerjugend [Hitler Youth], which was a youth organization, and I didn’t join them either. And the special thing was that the Hitlerjugend had to go to school on Sunday afternoon. They were trained to be particularly National Socialist. And the girls were pretty crazy about it. They enjoyed it. In March 1945, an SS man came to their school. He went into the classroom, to the 14-year-old boys. He called them up, and when they stood there. He said, “Now we’re going to go to Birchfeld and we will push back the Russians.” They were jubilating that they were allowed to do that. The others, whom he didn’t take along because they weren’t 14 years old, they were weeping because they couldn’t go. They weren’t allowed to go.

PATRICIA HEBERER: I just want to clarify that in March 1938, as Hermine just described, the German troops marched into Austria. In effect, Austria was annexed to Germany. It became part of the German Reich, and that’s why Hermine and her family fell under Nazi rule. I wanted to ask if your parents or your siblings also had trouble. You had trouble in the school with not giving the Hitler salute and singing the national anthem. Did your siblings, your parents, also have trouble with the authorities?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: My father… my eldest brother Hans, of whom they said he should be hung because he didn’t go into military service, he was drafted when Hitler was not in Austria yet. He refused military service. He was condemned to one year of prison. And he did that in Klagenfurt during the winter months and he was allowed to work on the farm during in the summer. So he was delayed his dismissal, so to speak, from prison. And when he was dismissed, Hitler was in Austria, and imagine [this]: he gets an exclusion paper from the German Wehrmacht. He was not worthy to fight for the Germans because he was a criminal and he was condemned to forced labor. He was fortunate that he was not warrior. And the war started only a year later. 1944, in the fall, the so called the Volkssturm was launched and there everybody was drafted. And my father, who was sixty years old, and my brother Hans, they were drafted at Christmas 1944 for the Volkssturm. They didn’t go. They were picked up on January second and they were taken to prison in Klagenfurt. And there he was taken to the Gestapo boss, my father that was, and he asked him why he wouldn’t go to war. My father said, “I am a Christian and it says I should not kill.” “But,” the Gestapo boss says, “you won’t have to kill anybody. Maybe you won’t even have to touch a gun. Just go downstairs and do the oath. Otherwise we will have to send you to Dachau. You have no idea what Dachau means. You are too old. You won’t survive.” My father said, “I know exactly what Dachau means, but I can’t do the oath. I haven’t gotten life from the man or from the state.”

At the age of 11, [I] got into fifth grade. I sat in the second row. The headmaster was teaching this class and the first day he said, “Hermine, get your things together and go back into the first grade.” Took my things, picked them up, went back to the first grade. Have to say though, the six year old children were in that class too. The school I went to only had two classes. There were four years in the first grade and four years in second grade. So he was putting [me] back into [my] fourth school year. One year before, when I was supposed to go join the Hitler Youth, he called me up in front, at first to try and talk gently to me and tell me I should do what he said. After I continued to refuse, he said at the end, “You will see what your stubborn ways will get you.” So he sent me back to the previous year.

In January of the same year, my father was called into custody court. It was a normal court. He was called to youth court, and he had been presented the kind of form we’d seen before. For my father, there was the addition that he was supposed to bring up his children according to the National Socialist ideology. He didn’t sign. And he was told that from now on, custody was taken away from him and I was going to be picked up and going to be coming to a National Socialist school. And that was the worst thing that happened to me in my whole life.

In the beginning of February, on the first train of the morning, a lady came from St. Veit, from Child Care, to pick me up. And even though we were all prepared for this day to come -- we knew exactly when she was going to come -- it was very bad. Everybody was weeping. And it was worse for my mother and myself. I went to the train with the lady, went to St. Veit. There we switched trains to Feldkirchen. Up in the mountain, built on a hill on a slope, there was this school called Maya. I was terribly homesick.

In Feldkirchen we went from that home to school. There they checked my knowledge, how good I was, and they made me a magnificent offer. I’d be allowed to go to secondary school. And why was that something special then? Today it’s a known fact, but at the time that secondary school was only there in certain cities, in major cities. I would have loved to go to that secondary school. But only on the condition that I would do everything they asked me to do. And I refused that. I went to the fifth grade, didn’t have a six anymore but got a three in behavior. And they also said, “Why? Hermine refuses the Hitler salute, the singing of National Socialist songs, and also saluting the flag.”

Saluting the flag was something else. Every Sunday, we had to present ourselves. For breakfast we had to do the salute. In front of the institution there was this court and I didn’t want to go. So they wouldn’t see that I wouldn’t participate, I was locking myself into the toilet. Two girls came and were looking for me and they found me, and they said, “Hermine, you have to go out. You have to present yourself.” So I went out, to the last row. There were three or four rows opposite the boys. Between those two groups on the left was the headmistress and on the right, a flag pole. The girls pushed me up into the front row. Someone said, “Achtung.” Everybody was quiet. Everyone raised their right hand. I didn’t. And the headmistress said, “Hermine, lift your hand.” And because I didn’t do it, the girl behind me and right next to me tried to lift my hand but I was stronger than they were. It didn’t work. They didn’t get it up. What was my punishment that Sunday? No dessert for lunch. It would have been a pudding.

One day, a lady comes with a brown velvet jacket and says, “Hermine, put on that jacket.” And I said, “Can’t put it on. Won’t put it on. That’s the uniform jacket of the Hitler Youth and I am not a member.” “Well,” she said, “we will see if you will put it on or not.” She takes my left hand and she pulls it in the sleeve. She only got as far as the elbow and I was out of it again. We were fighting back and forth for a while, until we were both sweating.

PATRICIA HEBERER: Were you able to contact your parents during this time period?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: First Sunday of every month, there was a visitors Sunday. Not for me. I was not allowed to get any visitors at all. But my father, he visited me on my way to school, without anybody knowing and he talked to me, encouraged me, brought things for me which I would hide under or in my bed. But these visits didn’t remain unnoticed. There was no so-called improvement in my behavior, and then they said the influence of her parents is still too much. I have to be taken away, farther from home.

In September of the same year, I was taken to [a school in] Munich, which was a nunnery. From there also we went into school. I was in the last row because I didn’t want to be noticed but the teacher must have had some information about me. She walks into the classroom through the doors. She sees me and says, “Hermine, come up front.” I went up to her. And she asked me, “Hermine, why don’t you say Heil Hitler?” And I explained it to her but she couldn’t grasp it, believe it. She clapped her hands and said, “Hermine, you are Germanic. You have blonde hair and blue eyes.” She had been to Austria and she knows exactly that there are no Jews in Carinthia, only Germanic people. And then said in a very derogatory way, “Well, Jehovah is the god of the Jews.” And I answered, “Jehovah is the Creator. He created everybody. That is why he is the God for everybody.” She couldn’t understand that. But Hitler had this idea that in his land he only wanted to have Aryans.

PATRICIA HEBERER: Were you eventually able to return to your parents or did you stay at the home until the end of the war?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: No. My parents wrote letters to me. They sent me parcels. And my aunts and uncles wrote to me and encouraged me. The headmaster called me and said, “Who are these aunts and uncles?” “This is the brother of my father and the sister of my mother.” “Doesn’t matter who that is. From now, only your parents are allowed to write you. Nothing should be written in those letters that encourages her to … otherwise you can’t get any letters anymore.” I have to tell my parents. I have to write to them. Then he asks, “Tell me Hermine, are you afraid your parents will stop liking you if you say ‘Heil Hitler’?” “No.” “Did they say so?” “No.” “Maybe you’re afraid they won’t like you anymore.” “No, certainly not.” “Why not?” “One of my brothers was not a Jehovah’s Witness.” And then I reasoned with her that what Peppi was much more difficult for my parents to stomach than if I said, “Heil Hitler.” My father had always spoken against the war. He’d been in the First World War. He was in Russian captivity and he’d been through a lot and he always said, “War is the worst thing for a people. And as a Christian, you’re not supposed to support war.”

PATRICIA HEBERER: Can you tell what happened to you and your family at the war’s end?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: My brother Hans came to Dachau. It was at the end of January 1945. From there to another camp to a quarry. They had to work hard. It was not the hard work or the cold or the hunger that was the worst, but the hygienic conditions were so bad. They couldn’t change that striped dress. They couldn’t wash properly. Because of the pollution they had lice and they had typhus. And he got typhus at the end of March. He was sent back to Dachau to the isolation ward. Three weeks he was unconscious. On the twenty-fifth of April, they had to present themselves, the inmates, and there was a speech. “The camp is going to be dissolved.” They have a long march ahead of them. And the ones who cannot do it can stay in the camp. A friend of his came and Hans [said], “I can’t get up.” And his friend also said, “I’ll stay here.” There were a number who were still alive. Four days later, the Americans came and liberated Dachau. He was taken to an infirmary by the Americans. For two months he was in the infirmary. On the twenty-ninth of June, he got home -- 45 kilos, 6 foot 1 inch.

PATRICIA HEBERER: How did your parents train you to prepare for such persecution?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: Primarily my mother prepared me very well. I was with her from childhood on. And she always pointed to Creation, how nicely everything was made by Jehovah. She showed me the stars and also the zodiac. When she knew that I was going to be taken away from her, she said, “Could be that one day we won’t get mail from each other anymore. I won’t get a letter from you. You won’t get a letter from me. And I should just look up at the Pleiades and she will look there as well and we will feel this connection.” Then she said, “You must never feel alone. Jehovah, God, and Jesus will always be with you and they will help you. Don’t forget to pray.” She prepared me very well. She said, “You have to decide for yourself what you want to do or not want to do. If you are told to do something and you’re allowed to do it, then do it properly. Respect all your bosses.” And she said something very important. When I got to school, it might be that a boy or someone is going to make fun of me. I should not think about vengeance. “It doesn’t help. It doesn’t bring anything. It just makes things worse.” And at that time it was quite common to hear men were blinded by the propaganda of the National Socialist party. They don’t know what it is going to entail.

PATRICIA HEBERER: Was there ever a time where you were confused about your faith?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: No, not at that time. But the headmaster once sent me to a closed institution, and I couldn’t have left from there and gone to school. And that must have really given me a shock. He sent me to look at it, and then I asked him, “May I go home when I say ‘Heil Hitler?” “I don’t think so,” he said. “Well why should I say, ‘Heil Hitler’ if I can’t go home anyway?”

PATRICIA HEBERER: Were you able to read scripture while you were in the home to continue your religious faith in some way?

HERMINE LISKA [through translator]: My father got me a small bible while I was still in Carinthia in Austria, which I then hid. And every Saturday they had to clean the underside of the beds where [I] had hidden the bible. When [I] was in Munich, the girls had to go to church on Sunday because it was a nunnery and there was a Church there. And [I] didn’t go. [I] had to go to the porter at that time and this nun asked her, “Why are you not going to Church?” [I] said, “I’m not Catholic.” “What are you?” she said. “I’m Jehovah’s Witness,” I said. And she said, “And so you don’t have a church?” And I said, “No.” She said, “Well what kind of religion is this, you don’t even have a church?” [I] said, “At home we always used to do our scripture reading at home on a Sunday morning.” And the nun said, “Well, today is Sunday. Why are you not reading your bible then?” [I] said, “Well, I didn’t get it when I came.” And she said, “Well, I’ll try and get you back your bible.” And when I came home from school, she was already waving to me and there was a small window and she passed the bible through to me. You can imagine how happy I was when I got that bible. Every Sunday I read through the Bible to that nun, why I am there, and she read different scriptures. So [I] was reading lots of scriptures. [My] parents hadn’t prepared [me] quite well. And that also helped me to be able to talk about my faith. Hence [I] always had the feeling as though Jehovah had helped [me].

PATRICIA HEBERER: More than sixty years after the Holocaust, hatred, prejudice, intolerance, still threaten us today in our world, and the lives of Holocaust survivors like Hermine remind us of our constant need to be vigilant as citizens here in the United States and abroad to stop injustice and intolerance wherever and whenever that occurs in our presence. And I think that Hermine has brought us all that lesson tonight. So I’d like to invite you all to help me in thanking her. [Applause]