[{"body":"At the defendant's request, the court is reviewing a documentary about Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR and a fragment of a film about believers in Nazi Germany. After that, Ilya Olenin testifies. He says that extremism contradicts his beliefs: \"My grandfather, who worked as the chief prosecutor of Chelyabinsk, said an important idea: 'The main thing in our business is to keep a clear conscience.' It became my life credo.\"\n","caseTitle":"Case of Olenin in Snezhinsk","date":"2022-06-09T00:00:00Z","permalink":"/en/cases/snezhinsk2/index.html#20220609","regions":["chelyabinsk"],"tags":["first-instance","interrogation","ussr","nazi-germany"],"type":"timeline"},{"body":"On January 27, the world observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a symbolic date to commemorate the victims of Nazism. Murderous Nazi terror targeted millions for reasons of biology, nationality, or political ideology. Few people recognize that the Nazis’ victims included thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who suffered for their Christian faith.\nJehovah’s Witnesses, also then known as Bible Students, were “the only group in the Third Reich to be persecuted on the basis of their religious beliefs alone,” says Professor Robert Gerwarth. The Nazi regime branded Witnesses “enemies of the State,” according to historian Christine King, because of “their very public refusal to accept even the smallest elements of [Nazism], which didn’t fit their faith and their beliefs.”\nOn religious grounds, the politically neutral Witnesses refused to give the “Heil Hitler” salute, take part in racist and violent acts, or join the German army. Moreover, “in their literature they publicly identified the evils of the regime, including what was happening to the Jews,” stated King.\nWitnesses were among the first sent to concentration camps, where they bore a unique uniform symbol—the purple triangle. Of about 35,000 Witnesses in Nazi-occupied Europe, more than one-third suffered direct persecution. Most were arrested and imprisoned. Hundreds of their children were taken to Nazi homes or reformatories. About 4,200 Witnesses went to Nazi concentration camps. Leading authority Detlef Garbe wrote: “The declared intention of the NS [Nazi] rulers was to completely eliminate the Bible Students from German history.” (Between Resistance and Martyrdom: Jehovah's Witnesses in the Third Reich, by D. Garbe, University of Wisconsin Press. 2008. p. 521) An estimated 1,600 Witnesses died, 548 by execution, including at least 39 minors.\nThe Nazis sought to break Witnesses’ religious convictions by offering them freedom in exchange for a pledge of obedience. The standard Erklärung (issued beginning in 1938) required the signee to renounce his or her faith, denounce other Witnesses to the police, fully submit to the Nazi government, and defend the “Fatherland” with weapon in hand. Prison and camp officials often used torture and privation to induce Witnesses to sign. According to Garbe, “extremely low numbers” of Witnesses recanted their faith.\nGeneviève de Gaulle, a niece of General Charles de Gaulle and member of the French Resistance, said of female Witness prisoners in Ravensbrück concentration camp: “What I admired a lot in them was that they could have left at any time just by signing a renunciation of their faith. . . . Ultimately, these women, who appeared to be so weak and worn out, were stronger than the SS, who had power and all the means at their disposal. They had their strength, and it was their willpower that no one could beat.”\nThe failure of Nazi coercion in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses contrasts with widespread societal conformity to Nazi aims before and during the Holocaust. The nonviolent resistance of ordinary people to racism, extreme nationalism, and violence merits thoughtful reflection on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day.\nSee also: “In the Spring of 1945, Russia Freed Jehovah's Witnesses From Concentration Camps. Why, 75 Years Later, Are They Again in Prisons?” \"\n","category":"crime","date":"2022-01-27T13:53:02+02:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2022/01/271353/image_hu_7b73fe95a239772f.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2022/01/271353/image_hu_d86a2a7d2062b2fb.jpg","webp":"/news/2022/01/271353/image_hu_5a26a69cf9ae7594.webp","webp2x":"/news/2022/01/271353/image_hu_c72267596fb4afe9.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2022/01/271353.html","regions":[],"subtitle":null,"tags":["nazi-germany"],"title":"Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses Were Among the Millions Victims of Nazism","type":"news"},{"body":"On May 16, 2021, the association of former prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp (Lagergemeinschaft Dachau) sent an open letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin condemning the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.\n“Not a day passes on which there is no report of state repression against Jehovah’s Witnesses,” the letter explains. “The homes of members of the religious denomination are searched and ravaged by the Russian secret service, FSB, and the police. Violent assaults and mistreatment occur. Women and men are condemned to long-term prison sentences. Requests to ease detention conditions or for parole are regularly refused.”\nThe letter concludes: “We urge you to grant every resident of the Russian Federation the constitutional right to free exercise of religion. Please end this injustice!”\nSince the ban on Russian religious organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses and as of June 7, 2021, almost 1500 searches have been carried out in 65 regions of Russia, 492 people have become accused of extremism, the courts have already passed 100 sentences, 15 believers have been sent to a colony, 2 have served their sentences and been released, the rest are still serving their sentences. A total of 57 Jehovah's Witnesses are detained for their faith.\n","category":"rights","date":"2021-06-07T15:04:09+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2021/06/071504/image_hu_b9baf012a256ede3.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2021/06/071504/image_hu_177f0719e6d8855a.jpg","webp":"/news/2021/06/071504/image_hu_c2005e176cc738ba.webp","webp2x":"/news/2021/06/071504/image_hu_fe9baa5187feb4a8.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2021/06/071504.html","regions":["moscow","germany"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["nazi-germany","international","eu","head"],"title":"Former prisoners of the Dachau concentration camp called on Putin to stop the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia","type":"news"},{"body":"More than 4,000 prisoners of concentration camps wore purple triangles on their chests. Because of their faith, they refused to salute Hitler, pick up weapons and fight. On the 75th anniversary of the liberation, the peace-loving Jehovah's Witnesses are again in prison, this time in Russia. How did the liberating country become an oppressor?\nWhy were Jehovah's Witnesses considered \"enemies of the Reich\" in Nazi Germany? Jehovah's Witnesses believed that participation in the leader's personality cult, participation in elections, work in party structures and military enterprises, as well as military service were contrary to the commandments of the Gospel. Of the 35,000 followers of this religion who lived in the territories controlled by Berlin, 11,300 were arrested, 4,200 were sent to concentration camps, and 1,600 died.\nIn 2020, visitors to the memorial museums of former concentration camps will be able to see monuments, plates and stands telling about the feat of faith of Jehovah's Witnesses. For example, the plaque in Sachsenhausen tells the story of 29-year-old Jehovah's Witness August Dieckmann, the first in Nazi Germany to be executed for refusing to serve in the Wehrmacht. In 1939, just three days after the outbreak of World War II, August was summoned to the Gestapo and ordered to sign a conscription document. When he refused, he was placed in solitary confinement, and the camp commander asked the SS for permission to execute Dickmann in the presence of all camp prisoners. Here is how one of the participants of those events told about it: \"The SS shot August Dieckmann and threatened to shoot the others if we did not sign a renunciation of our faith. No one did. We were no longer afraid of their bullets, but of not pleasing Jehovah.\"\nIn 1944-1945, the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army participated in the liberation of concentration camp prisoners, including Jehovah's Witnesses. For example, some of the 387 Jehovah's Witnesses sent to Auschwitz were still in the camp on the day of liberation, January 27, 1945. The world as a whole learned about the existence of the concentration camps of the Third Reich only in 1945. Meanwhile, as early as 1937, Jehovah's Witnesses reported on poison gas experiments in the Dachau camp in their journal Consolation, and in 1940 they published the names of 20 concentration camps and described what was happening there. Then they did not attach any importance to this.\nWhy were Jehovah's Witnesses considered \"enemies of the people\" in the Soviet Union? In 1941, when Wehrmacht troops attacked the borders of the USSR, there was not a single Jehovah's Witness among the attackers. The believers were ready to die at the hands of the executioners, but not to shoot at people. At the end of the war, however, when the number of Jehovah's Witnesses in the USSR increased dramatically at the expense of new territories, the Soviet government responded with ingratitude.\nJehovah's Witnesses in the USSR still believed that participation in the cult of personality of the leader, participation in elections, work in party structures and military enterprises, as well as service in the Soviet army contradicted the Gospel commandments. Already in the early 1950s, thousands of Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses were deported to Siberia without means of subsistence (the infamous Operation North), many died in the Gulag institutions. Some of Jehovah's Witnesses went first to Nazi and then to Soviet camps. Here's one example.\nIn 1943, in Bessarabia, German-controlled authorities sentenced 23-year-old Ephraim Platon to 25 years of hard labor for refusing to take the military oath and take up arms. He told what happened at the recruiting station: \"Eight conscripts, including me, stepped forward. We said that we would not participate in the war, because we adhere to the position of neutrality. We were arrested and severely beaten, so that even my wife barely recognized me. Then we were sent to Chisinau, where we had to appear before a military court. In the bitter cold, we, eight people, chained and urged on by soldiers who did not allow us to eat or drink, walked 140 kilometers in 21 days. When we arrived at the next police station, we were beaten - there were 13 such stations on our way! We survived only by the fact that the locals fed us when we stayed overnight at the polling stations. In May 1945, Bessarabia became part of the USSR, and the believer was released after 2 years of hard labor. But already in 1949, he was again separated from his family and sent on wanderings through the Gulag: first to Kurgan, then to Vorkuta. Only in 1965, the Platon family was able to be released from prison, and they were allowed to return to Moldova only in 1989.\nWhy are Jehovah's Witnesses classified as \"extremist organizations\" in modern Russia? In the indictment documents against believers, there are no victims or harm caused. In the Russian Federation, which considers itself the legal successor of the USSR, the vague concept of \"extremist activity\" is used to persecute Jehovah's Witnesses.\nSince 2017, the authorities of the Russian Federation have launched the most massive repression of Jehovah's Witnesses in the modern world. Law enforcement officers prey on peaceful believers throughout the country, seize Bibles and spiritual books, take them to courts, beat them, and torture them. Among them are the elderly, the disabled, parents of minor children, labor veterans, representatives of professions necessary for society. All Jehovah's Witnesses turned out to be potential criminals in Russia, who could be arrested at any time simply because of their religious views. If in the USSR Jehovah's Witnesses were accused of \"anti-Soviet propaganda\" and were seen as \"enemies of the people\", then in the Russian Federation they are accused of \"extremism\" and \"encroachment on the constitutional order.\" But behind the new formulations are old approaches: a person does not have to commit a crime to be behind bars. It is enough to believe in Jehovah and discuss this faith with others. In modern Russia, what in Germany and the rest of Europe is considered a long-lived nightmare has become a reality again. The EU countries in general (e.g., July 2017, February 2019, March 2020) and Germany in particular (May 2017, June 2019) strongly condemn Russia's actions towards Jehovah's Witnesses.\nDennis Christensen, Sergey Klimov, Konstantin Bazhenov, Felix Makhammadiyev, Alexei Miretsky, Alexey Budenchuk, Roman Gridasov, Gennady German are the names of Jehovah's Witnesses who are currently serving sentences in Russian colonies because of their religious affiliation. Hundreds of their fellow believers are involved in similar cases, dozens are imprisoned in pre-trial detention centers and under house arrest, awaiting sentences under serious criminal articles. \"I love my country, and I don't want my grandchildren to be ashamed of Russia, just as I am ashamed today in front of my grandparents for Stalin's repressions. Just as the citizens of Germany today are ashamed of the years of Nazi rule,\" said the convicted Saratov resident Alexei Miretsky in his last word, after which he added: \"I am sure that sooner or later justice will be restored. All prisoners of conscience who have been subjected to humiliation, insults, theft of property, deprivation of liberty will be acquitted and rehabilitated, as has happened more than once in the history of mankind. The only question is when?\n","category":"analytics","date":"2020-05-06T08:26:00+03:00","duration":null,"image":{"jpg":"/news/2020/05/3/image_hu_a9615847afff934b.jpg","jpg2x":"/news/2020/05/3/image.jpg","webp":"/news/2020/05/3/image_hu_4d97848f2717aa0d.webp","webp2x":"/news/2020/05/3/image_hu_49152367c0ab5cb2.webp"},"permalink":"/en/news/2020/05/3.html","regions":["moscow"],"subtitle":null,"tags":["nazi-germany","ussr","review","international-community","deportation"],"title":"In the Spring of 1945, Russia Freed Jehovah's Witnesses From Concentration Camps. Why, 75 Years Later, Are They Again in Prisons?","type":"news"}]