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Songs of the ghettos, concentration camps, and World War II partisan outposts

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Concentration Camp Songs

Stand Fast (Fest steht)

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Sachsenhausen concentration camp, 1942

Lyrics by: Erich Frost

Composer: Erich Frost

Language: German


Men’s Choir directed by Erich Frost

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    Erich Frost, July 1931.

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    Stand Fast

    Erich Frost (1900–1987), a musician and devout Jehovah’s Witness, was active in the religious resistance to Hitler’s authority. Caught smuggling pamphlets from Switzerland to Germany, he was…

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    The US Holocaust Memorial Museum may use your comments for educational, research, and Museum purposes, including publication. A selection of comments may be posted on our website, at our discretion.

  • Erich Frost, July 1931.

    Erich Frost, July 1931. —History Archive of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Germany

  • Portrait of Simone Arnold Liebster at the age of 17, Mulhouse, France, 1947.

    Portrait of Simone Arnold Liebster at the age of 17, Mulhouse, France, 1947. —History Archive of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Germany

  • Simone Arnold Liebster (middle) poses for a photograph with her parents, Emme and Adolphe Arnold, 1947.

    Simone Arnold Liebster (middle) poses for a photograph with her parents, Emme and Adolphe Arnold, 1947. —History Archive of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Germany

  • Bible study material that was rolled up, baked into cookies, and smuggled into Dachau to Adolphe Arnold by his sister-in-law. Adolphe Arnold, a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for his anti-Nazi views and sent first to Dachau and later to Mauthausen.

    Bible study material that was rolled up, baked into cookies, and smuggled into Dachau to Adolphe Arnold by his sister-in-law. Adolphe Arnold, a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for his anti-Nazi views and sent first to Dachau and later to Mauthausen. —United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

  • Erich Frost, July 1931.
  • Portrait of Simone Arnold Liebster at the age of 17, Mulhouse, France, 1947.
  • Simone Arnold Liebster (middle) poses for a photograph with her parents, Emme and Adolphe Arnold, 1947.
  • Bible study material that was rolled up, baked into cookies, and smuggled into Dachau to Adolphe Arnold by his sister-in-law. Adolphe Arnold, a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for his anti-Nazi views and sent first to Dachau and later to Mauthausen.

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Erich Frost, July 1931.

Erich Frost, July 1931.
—History Archive of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Germany

 Close

Portrait of Simone Arnold Liebster at the age of 17, Mulhouse, France, 1947.

Portrait of Simone Arnold Liebster at the age of 17, Mulhouse, France, 1947.
—History Archive of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Germany

 Close

Simone Arnold Liebster (middle) poses for a photograph with her parents, Emme and Adolphe Arnold, 1947.

Simone Arnold Liebster (middle) poses for a photograph with her parents, Emme and Adolphe Arnold, 1947.
—History Archive of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Germany

 Close

Bible study material that was rolled up, baked into cookies, and smuggled into Dachau to Adolphe Arnold by his sister-in-law. Adolphe Arnold, a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for his anti-Nazi views and sent first to Dachau and later to Mauthausen.

Bible study material that was rolled up, baked into cookies, and smuggled into Dachau to Adolphe Arnold by his sister-in-law. Adolphe Arnold, a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for his anti-Nazi views and sent first to Dachau and later to Mauthausen.
—United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Erich Frost (1900–1987), a musician and devout Jehovah’s Witness, was active in the religious resistance to Hitler’s authority. Caught smuggling pamphlets from Switzerland to Germany, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin where he composed this song in 1942. Later deported to a labor camp at Alderney, Channel Islands, Frost survived the war and returned to Germany to serve the Watchtower Society. Fest steht, reworked in English as Forward, You Witnesses, is among the most popular of Jehovah’s Witness hymns. This performance, evoking some of the song’s original spirit, took place under Frost’s direction at an event held in Wiesbaden, Germany, during the 1960s.

Simone Arnold Liebster, who sings the English version of the song, was born in 1930 in Mulhouse, French Alsace. After the incorporation of Alsace into the German Reich during World War II, Liebster’s family suffered increasing harrassment from the Nazis for following the Jehovah’s Witness faith. Eventually both her father (Adolphe Arnold) and mother were arrested and sent to concentration and detention camps while she was placed in a correctional institution for “nonconformist” youth. Liebster has published an autobiography, Facing the Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe.

Original German text

1. Fest steht in grosser und schwerer Zeit
ein Volk seinem König kampfgeweiht.
Er lehrte es kämpfen und siegen,
er lehrte es kämpfen und siegen.
Hell ist das Auge und ruhig das Blut,
ihr Schwert ist die Wahrheit, das schwingen sie gut,
was nützet dem Feinde all Lügen?
Was nützet dem Feinde all Lügen?

(Refrain)

Zeugen Jehovas, unverzagt!
Ist heiss auch das Ringen,
tobt wild die Schlacht.
Sind hart auch die Bande,
die Fesseln schwer,
doch mächtig der Arm, der euch decket!
Zeugen Jehovas im Feindesland
und fern von der Heimat, vom Liebsten verbannt;
Hebt auf eure Blicke zu dem,
des Hand für euch ist schon ausgestrecket!

2. Wahrheit und Rechte, durch Menschen verkehrt.
Der Name Jehovas, von Teufeln entehrt,
die müssen wohl wieder gelten!
Die müssen wohl wieder gelten!
Heiliger Krieg, von des Höchsten Mund,
nun war er geboten zu rechter Stund,
den Schwachen, den macht er zum Helden,
den Schwachen, den macht er zum Helden.

(Refrain) Zeugen Jehovas unverzagt!

3. Schuldlos im Kerker, der Freiheit beraubt!
Spottend erheben die Feinde das Haupt,
sie möchten uns gerne regieren,
sie möchten uns gerne regieren.
Wir doch, wir hören an jedem Ort
nur unseres Königs Kommandowort.
Nur er kann doch sicher uns führen,
nur er kann doch sicher uns führen!

(Refrain) Zeugen Jehovas unverzagt!

4. Feindliches Drohen, der Freunde Flehn,
doch von dem Kampfe abzusteh‘n,
die konnten uns nimmer erweichen,
die konnten uns nimmer erweichen.
Hunger und Schläge und harte Fron
sind unserer Treue grausiger Lohn,
und viele, die mußten erbleichen,
und viele, die mußten erbleichen!

(Refrain) Zeugen Jehovas unverzagt!

5. Doch kommt der Tag einst, der alles befreit,
was zu des Höchsten Ruhme geweiht,
aus Satans finsteren Banden,
aus Satans finsteren Banden!
Jubelndes Singen die Lande durchdringt,
von allen Bergen es widerklingt,
Das Reich unsres Herrn ist erstanden,
das Reich unsres Herrn ist erstanden!

(Refrain) Zeugen Jehovas unverzagt!

Related Links

  • Listen to Simone Arnold Liebster sing the English version of the song Forward, You Witnesses!

    To listen to this audio please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.

  • Listen to Erich Frost speaking (in German) about the origin of Stand Fast/Forward You Witnesses

    To listen to this audio please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.

  • English translation of Erich Frost interview excerpt describing the origin of “Zeugen Jehovas”/“Forward You Witnesses”

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    English translation of Erich Frost interview excerpt describing the origin of “Zeugen Jehovas”/“Forward You Witnesses”

    We had, as is generally known, the hardest labor detail under the harshest conditions imaginable. We were always plagued by hunger and the demands for work far surpassed our capacity to do it. The chicanery in the camp was often unbearable anyway. So I searched for some means to revive the spirits of the brothers. They were used to me doing that anyway. And I can say that we had such a fine unit of brothers in Sachsenhausen. They urged me to write a song that we could sing among ourselves and could use to encourage one other. In short, we marched every morning to a work site in Oranienburg. There they were building a sewage treatment plant and I was in a brigade of forty men, all brothers, led by a supervisor who was also a brother. We marched, naturally, under SS guard from the camp to the worksite. And with this march-step the rhythm went through my head around and around, bum bum bum bum... And that's how I slowly pieced together the melody. Not just on one day or one morning but over a period of days. And that's how the music developed, with a few words which appear in the text we have before us today. But then the problem was to get these verses back into the camp. Not being able to write them down, I chose a few brothers who looked sharp, who seemed up to the task, and took them aside one by one. To the first I taught the first verse until he knew it by heart, whether it be while marching, or working, or going back and forth. I did the same with the second, the third, and the fourth. In the evening I quizzed them and each repeated his verse. And that's how the song came into existence. I had enough paper and pencil in the camp so I could write it down. How this song got out of the camp, I have no idea to this day. In the evenings while we sat together someone would start to sing this song and then the whole row would singing. We were overjoyed, we became truly radiant. It gave us the courage to hope and to endure. During our church services, or evenings when we had our lectures, or when we studied a copy of the Watchtower, the song would be the highpoint where we would draw our strength to carry on. In the mornings, when forty men began their exhausting march down the streets of Oranienburg, one of the brothers would quietly start singing this melody until it enveloped the whole column. We knew, on the other hand, that we could not sing it loudly: that would have been dangerous. The SS would have taken us directly back to the camp and severely punished us.

  • Holocaust Encyclopedia article—Jehovah’s Witnesses: Persecution and Incarceration

  • Holocaust Encyclopedia article—Jehovah’s Witnesses: Persecution 1870–1936

  • Learning Materials and Resources—Jehovah’s Witnesses: Victims of the Nazi Era

  • http://www.facingthelion.com/ (website for Simone Arnold Liebster’s memoirs)

  • http://www.facingthelion.com/foreword3.htm (Introduction by Sybil Milton in website for Simone Arnold Liebster)

  • http://www.jwhistory.de (book on persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses, with foreword by Michael Berenbaum and essays by Sybil Milton.)

Dachau Song (Dachau Lied) The Soldiers of the Moor (Die Moorsoldaten)

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