Bibelforscher musicians [Zeugen Jehovas] in the concentration camps opened by the Third Reich

[Excerpt from the conference organized by Wikimedia Italia, Triennale di Milano, January 28, 2024 - © Fondazione ILMC Barletta]

In the territory of the Reich, the International Bible Students (from 26 July 1931 Jehovah's Witnesses ), followers of a Christian religious movement founded in 1870 by the American preacher Charles Taze Russell with its legal headquarters at the Watchtower Society of Brooklyn, were called Bibelforscher – later Zeugen Jehovas – and were the largest community of Jehovah 's Witnesses in Europe; they were discriminated against mainly because of their resistance to compulsory military conscription reintroduced in Germany in 1935 as well as their refusal to carry out war industry work, recognize the authority of the Reich and adhere to National Socialist symbols (salute to the Führer and the Reich flag, enrollment of their children in the Hitler Youth).

Mieczysław Kaleciński, a Witness from G.va arrested in Bukowno, recalls that the Reich authorities intended to enlist them in the Fire Brigade (at that time in Germany it was a paramilitary corps), they asked them to sign a paper declaring that they were not Jews and that they would conscientiously carry out every task assigned to them by the Reich, but they refused.

Approximately 10,000 Bible Formers were transferred to concentration camps within the Reich, 250 of whom were killed. In Buchenwald, there were approximately 800 Witnesses of God , 38 of whom died in the camp, while another 55 died during the Death Marches. 3,000 of them, from Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland, were transferred to concentration camps and penitentiaries for refusing to recant. Many were tortured, and 1,650 perished.

Born in Leipzig on December 22, 1900, Eric Hugo Frost (photo 1) learned his first musical rudiments from his father; in 1915 he began studying at a commercial school but interrupted his studies at the outbreak of the First World War, due to which he was conscripted into the Prussian army.

After the war, Frost devoted himself entirely to music, studying piano and composition at the Royal Conservatory in his hometown, and becoming a pianist and Kapellmeister; in the same year, his mother converted to the doctrine of the Bibelforscher.

At his mother's urging, Frost began working with the Ernste Bibelforscher (Earnest Bible Researchers), a denomination of Witnesses in Germany until 1931; on March 4, 1923, both he and his father embraced the new faith.

After interrupting his musical studies, he earned his living by playing at Cafès. In 1924 the Wachtturm Gesellschaft gave him the position of Aufseher at the Literaturdepot of the Leipzig congregation. From 1928 onwards he worked on the cinematic projection of the religious film Photo-Drama der Schöpfung, produced by the International Bible Student Association, for which he wrote the music.

He worked as a musical accompanist for silent films in Stettin and was involved in the proselytizing activity of his congregation, also in response to the numerous discriminatory provisions issued by the Reich starting in April 1933 against the Bibelforscher.

Arrested and released after 10 days, Frost emigrated to Czechoslovakia; in May 1935 he returned to Germany and found work building the Berlin subway.

In 1933, there were approximately 25,000 Bibelforscher in Germany; with the Nazi Party's rise to power, discrimination against the Bibelforscher became increasingly severe; approximately 10,000 members of their congregations were arrested by the police and transferred to penitentiaries or concentration camps, as well as subjected to Schutzhaft (pre-trial detention). 1,000 Bibelforscher lost their lives in captivity.

For his proselytizing activities and the distribution of leaflets hostile to National Socialism, Frost was arrested on June 13, 1935, and transferred to Camp Columbia near Berlin-Tempelhof; on March 27, 1937, he was arrested by the Gestapo, transferred to Esterwegen, and finally to Sachsenhausen.

In Sachsenhausen, Frost was assigned to forced labor in the shoe department; after recovering from severe pneumonia, he was assigned to work in the water purification plants, his work consisting mainly of transporting earth in a wheelbarrow over short distances.

In the camp, the Bibelforscher were separated from the other deportees; 150 of them died in isolation due to food rationing, cold, infectious diseases, and targeted killings. Even in isolation, the Bibelforscher organized meetings, read the strictly prohibited notebooks of the Brooklyn Watchtower Society, discussed religious matters, and performed choral songs.

In the camp, Frost gave concerts for the guards and in the spring of 1941 he conceived the hymn Fest steht in großer, schwerer Zeit for male choir – also titled Jehovas Zeugen or Vorwärts, ihr Zeugen! – memorized by the author and other Bible scholars, each for one stanza (a system used in other camps) and written down on a sheet of paper that was later hidden by a co-religionist who was in charge of a stable just outside the camp perimeter where some SS members raised rabbits and where numerous publications and book material of the Wachtturm-Gesellschaft were hidden.

The sheet containing the hymn Fest steht was sent clandestinely to co-religionists in Switzerland and mailed to the Watchtower Society headquarters in Brooklyn.

As he reports in his lyrics, Frost had had the melody of "Fest Steht" in mind for a long time; one day, during the daily march from the camp to the water purification plants with 40 of his fellow believers, he finally decided to give the hymn's melody a text, drawing inspiration from the Gospel of Luke, chapters 16 and 16. Although the deportees were forbidden to speak to each other, he managed to ask four of his fellow believers with good memories to memorize each of the hymn's verses.

Returning to the camp block in the evening, the four Bible scholars dictated the memorized texts to Frost, who then assembled them into the melody he had written on paper; if the guards had found these papers, Frost would most likely have been hanged.

The Sachsenhausen Bible Students sang the hymn during marches and at evening meetings, Frost writes: “If we were together in the evening, someone would begin to sing a tune, other brothers would join in, and our eyes would begin to shine and we would take courage. Thanks to this singing, we had a way of relaxing and a special encouragement.”

In Sachsenhausen, Frost also wrote the hymn Welch ein Duften durch das Land zieht, dedicated to spring; at the end of July 1941 he was transferred to Neuengamme, and in 1943 he wrote the hymn Tag des Gewölks for men's choir and organ, also entitled Wolkengedunkel.

In June 1940, the Wehrmacht occupied the Channel Islands, a British Crown dependency in the English Channel, administered by the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey; on the northern island of Alderney, the Reich opened four concentration and forced labor camps, technically satellites of Neuengamme; the Helgoland and Borkum camps were run by the Organisation Todt for forced labor.

Jews, Bible scholars, Soviet and Polish prisoners of war were transferred to Alderney.

In 1943, Frost was transferred to Alderney in the Channel Islands and co-opted by the SS-Baubrigade I to the Albany sub-forced labor camp, where he wrote a Kampflied for male choir; released on May 5, 1945, from Albany, he returned to Germany and became head of the Wachtturm-Gesellschaft in Magdeburg until the religious congregation was banned in the territory of the German Democratic Republic on August 30, 1950.

Having moved to Wiesbaden, he became an Aufseher of the Wiesbaden Watch Tower Society but left in 1955 for health reasons; Frost was at the centre of a smear campaign allegedly perpetrated by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi, the security services of the German Democratic Republic) regarding his alleged collaboration with the Gestapo at Sachsenhausen, but the evidence presented in this regard has proven unsatisfactory, prejudicial and incomplete.

Many of his hymns were performed at the Wachtturm-Gesellschaft congresses; worthy of mention are the Kampflied, the Hallelujah-Chor and the symphonic poem Der Sieg der Gerechtigkeit for choir and orchestra.

On August 1, 1948, the hymn "Fest Steht" was sung for the first time in the United States by a choir of students from the 11th grade of the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead during their graduation ceremony. In 1950, the hymn "Fest Steht in Großer, Schwerer Zeit" was finally translated into English, titled "Forward, You Witnesses," and, partially edited and reshaped into three stanzas, was published in the Jehovah's Witness New Songbook in U.S. congregations of the religious movement as well as in numerous languages in church books, under the number 29.

Erich Frost died in Lübeck on 30 October 1987.

In December 1940, the military authorities at Auschwitz I Stammlager established a Lagerkapelle, an orchestra of deportees, mainly made up of former Polish, Czech, and Russian soldiers and resistance fighters. The orchestra was conducted by Franz Nierychło, the kitchen chief at Auschwitz I, about whom the surviving musicians testify as a despicable individual, musically unsuited to the role (Nierychło was later classified as a Volksdeutsche and conscripted into the Wehrmacht in 1942; he was replaced by the excellent Polish composer and conductor Adam Kopyciński).

The original core of the Lagerkapelle consisted of a saxophonist, a trumpeter, a percussionist, an accordionist, a violinist, and a double bass player; starting on January 6, 1941, rehearsals were held in the basement of Block 24, which was later converted into a concert hall for the benefit of the SS and deportees (a podium and a grand piano were located there).

Taking on the position of Lagerkapelle musician was a highly desirable status for the deportees, also because of the benefits it entailed, from more comfortable accommodations to freedom from hard forced labor to supplementary food rations (it is no coincidence that many amateur musicians tried in vain to join the orchestra); however, it could also constitute a source of contempt and discontent on the part of the majority of the deportees.

In June 1942, the Polish Witness flutist and clarinetist Jan [Johann] Otrębski (photo 2), born in Ząbkowice Śląskie on 23 May 1923, was arrested and transferred to Sosnowiec prison, where he was unsuccessfully pressured for four days to sign a pledge of abjuration from his faith; he was subsequently transferred to Myslowitz and on 15 September 1942 to Auschwitz I (he assumed the prison number 63609).

Otrębski chose not to participate in the activities of the Lagerkapelle but managed to borrow a violin from a member of the orchestra to comfort his co-religionists with music.

On April 13, 1943, Otrębski was transferred to Mauthausen-Gusen, on June 15, 1943 to Mauthausen-Eisenerz, on February 24, 1945 to Mauthausen-Peggau, on April 8, 1945 to the Mauthausen Main Camp, and on May 5, 1945, he was liberated by U.S. troops. On August 2, 1995, Otrebski gave a long interview to Robert Buckley about his experiences at Auschwitz, the audio materials of which are now accessible at the USHMM in Washington, DC.

Wilhelm Heinrich “Willy” Hild (photo 3) was born on December 30, 1894, in Frankfurt-Höchst to Evangelical Christian parents. He studied music at the Göttingen Conservatory, gaining professional experience as a musician in the municipal orchestra.

From 1912 onwards he played in numerous orchestras in Bad Soden, Ratibor, Breslau, Königsberg, Memel and from December 1912 to March 1913 on the ship Windhuk which set sail from Hamburg on a voyage around Africa; during the First World War he served in the military as an assistant oboist and auxiliary doctor and, during this period, wrote many works, each signed with place and date.

After the war he played in Frankfurt, first at the Alemannia-Lichtspiele and later with the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra (later the Radio Orchestra) and at the Schwan-Lichtspiele; on 22 August 1919 he married Fanny Frieda Buck of Malmsheim, from whom he had a daughter, Elsa.

From August 16, 1924, Hild worked as second violin in the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra; around the same time, her wife Frieda came into contact with the Frankfurt Bible Scholars and converted to the new faith, with her husband soon following suit.

Hild repeatedly showed clear intolerance towards the symbols and ideas of National Socialism. During a public commemoration in Frankfurt, while everyone was singing the Deutschlandlied, she did not rise from her seat or make the typical German salute, but instead began leafing through a sheet of music. As reported by the orchestra inspector, on November 10, 1933, at the end of the Führer's speech commemorating the Munich Putsch, when everyone stood up, made the well-known salute, and began singing the Horst Wessel Lied, Hild turned, looked at her watch, and was about to leave the room.

A few days after the incident, the Opera House management expelled Hild from the orchestra; Hild's letter of apology and the theatre management imposed financial penalties on him followed, but on 4 December Hild returned to the orchestra.

In October 1935, during an orchestra rehearsal, Hild suffered an epileptic seizure, most likely due to the after-effects of an injury sustained during the First World War; the doctor called to the emergency room declared that Hild would no longer be able to perform in the orchestra, but Hild tried his best to remain faithful to his professional commitments.

However, his health deteriorated so much that on December 22, 1936, he fainted during a break in an orchestra rehearsal, injuring himself in a fall. In March 1937, he was diagnosed with epilepsy due to the wounds he sustained in the war, and at that point, all he had left was his religious mission.

In early May 1938, Hild was arrested by the Gestapo in his Frankfurt apartment at Marbachweg 291. On May 25, he was placed in pre-trial detention because of his work as a Bible Student. Two days earlier, his wife, Frieda, had also been arrested and transferred to the penitentiary in Preungesheim. Five days later, the prison doctor certified Frieda as unfit for detention due to a heart problem that had worsened following her husband's arrest.

In July 1938, the Frankfurt Theater Management asked the Gestapo to explain the reasons for Hild's arrest. The Gestapo telephoned Director General Meissner, explaining that Hild had been arrested for his illegal activities as a Bible Student. The reprisals against Hild did not end with his job loss and arrest, so much so that his apartment was searched several times, and during one search, his daughter Elsa managed to hide some copies of the Bible Scholars' magazine Goldene Zeitalter (now Erwachet! or Awake!).

After his arrest, Hild was transferred to the police prison in Klapperfeldstrasse and was finally deported to Buchenwald on 29 July 1938.

In Buchenwald, Hild was assigned the serial number 5159 and assigned to forced labor in a stone quarry; in response to a further request from his daughter Elsa dated March 27, 1939, to release her father, the camp authorities refused, as Hild declared that she had no intention of renouncing her religious beliefs.

His wife Frieda died on April 30, 1939, at the age of 47, without ever seeing her husband again; on the other hand, despite being asked by the commandant of Buchenwald to recant in exchange for immediate release and reinstatement at the Frankfurt Opera, Hild remained steadfast in her beliefs.

This refusal provoked a harsh reaction from the camp authorities who subjected him to torture (his front teeth were knocked out) and denied him regular correspondence with his daughter Elsa.

A 1940 communication from the Buchenwald Lagerkcommandant stated that the prisoner in question "is still a stubborn Bible Student and refuses to renounce the Bible Student heresy. For this reason, he has been deprived of the otherwise permitted correspondence." (On August 30, 1942, his daughter Elsa married, despite her father's absence.)

Hild participated in the musical activities of Buchenwald and specifically in the camp band; she did not play in the band but became familiar with the bandoneon, which she learned to play in the camp. She also transposed and wrote music for the entertainment of the SS.

Hild preferred to play the accordion for her own pleasure, or at the birthday of a fellow prisoner in Block, or when waking up in the morning; a fellow prisoner recalls that Hild often woke the Block by playing Brahms' Wiegenlied on the bandoneon.

She wrote several songs for the secret meetings of the Bibelforscher in the camp, also accompanying them with the bandoneon; after the liberation of Buchenwald on 11 April 1945, Hild returned to Frankfurt where she initially lived with her daughter, son-in-law and grandson.

On May 29, 1945, Hild applied for reinstatement in the Opera House orchestra, and three days later he was reinstated at full pay. Unfortunately, deportation to Buchenwald worsened his epilepsy to the point that he could no longer work as a musician, so in October of the same year, Hild applied for and was granted a position in the theater's administration.

On 1 September 1946, Hild was placed into early retirement due to his seven-year stay in Buchewald; in February 1947 he married a former colleague, the opera singer Martha Grässler (also a Witness of G.va already deported to Lichtenburg and Ravensbrück). Both lived in Frankfurt-Sossenheim, and from 1965 in Mespelbrunn in Spessart (Bavaria).

Martha died on November 14, 1973 in Mespelbrunn, Willy on September 23, 1977 in Bessenbach.