World Holocaust Day: Jehovah’s Witnesses remember victims 80 years after

80 years after Holocaust, Jehovah’s Witnesses are remembering victims of the tragic incident by educating the world against man’s injustice to fellow men.

Every January 27, the world commemorates World Holocaust Day, while the remembrance serves as a sober reminder of human atrocities to fellow humans.

The religious organisation is leveraging its global bible-based campaigns to spread its belief and educate the public on a future free of human suffering caused by all forms of injustices; disclosing that one group targeted by the Nazis and first to be sent to death camps was Jehovah’s Witnesses.

According to a statement of the organisation, Jehovah’s Witnesses were identified by a purple-triangle patch on their uniforms during Holocaust, signifying imprisonment for their religious beliefs, and not their ethnicity.

“The Witnesses’ moral principles and practices did not align with the Nazi ideology of racism, hate, and extreme nationalism. Consequently, their activities were targeted, and they were banned in Germany as early as 1933.”

It stated further that the story of how Jehovah’s Witnesses maintained their faith despite the cruelties of Auschwitz is a lesser-known part of Nazi-era history. Accordingly, Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted solely based on their religious convictions.

The Nazis offered Witnesses freedom if they renounced their faith and supported the regime, but they remained loyal to their values. On January 27, 1945, the Soviet Union’s Red Army liberated about 7,000 prisoners from the death complex.

In 2024, Jehovah’s Witnesses released a digital brochure titled ‘Purple Triangles – Forgotten Victims of the Nazi Regime.’ The 32-page brochure is available for free download on jw.org and features pictures and documents from a traveling exhibition. “The exhibition, displayed at memorial museums and educational institutions across Europe, had been viewed by about 600,000 visitors by the end of 2002.”