{"id":1944,"date":"2013-10-12T18:28:08","date_gmt":"2013-10-12T18:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2013\/10\/12\/monument-to-witness-holocaust-survivor-unveiled-in-germany\/"},"modified":"2022-01-26T18:56:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-26T15:56:30","slug":"monument-to-witness-holocaust-survivor-unveiled-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/monument-to-witness-holocaust-survivor-unveiled-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Monument to Witness Holocaust Survivor Unveiled in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"p2\" class=\"p2\" style=\"text-align: justify; border-image: initial; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Light', Helvetica, 'Droid Sans', Arial, 'Arial Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; padding: 0px; margin: 1.25em 0px 1.25em 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">SELTERS, Germany\u2014A monument honoring the late Max Liebster, one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who endured over five years of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, was publicly dedicated on June\u00a021, 2013, in Lautertal-Reichenbach. The mayor and other city officials unveiled the monument in a ceremony attended by local residents as well as Mr.\u00a0Liebster\u2019s widow, Simone Liebster, who is also one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/images121013-300x150.jpg\" width=\"532\" height=\"266\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"p3\" class=\"p3\" style=\"text-align: justify; border-image: initial; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Light', Helvetica, 'Droid Sans', Arial, 'Arial Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; padding: 0px; margin: 1.25em 0px 1.25em 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">As a Jew living in Germany during Hitler\u2019s Nazi regime, Mr.\u00a0Liebster was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 and thereafter suffered in five different concentration camps: Sachsenhausen, Neuengamme, Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald. Eight of his family members perished in the camps. Among them was his father, whose body he personally carried to the Sachsenhausen crematorium.<\/p>\n<p id=\"p4\" class=\"p4\" style=\"text-align: justify; border-image: initial; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Light', Helvetica, 'Droid Sans', Arial, 'Arial Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; padding: 0px; margin: 1.25em 0px 1.25em 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">Mr.\u00a0Liebster became acquainted with fellow prisoners who were Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in the concentration camps. He was baptized as one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses after he regained his freedom in 1945. According to one of the bronze plaques affixed to his monument, Mr.\u00a0Liebster\u2019s faith \u201cgave [him] the strength and will to survive.\u201d He lived until the age of 93 before passing away in 2008.<\/p>\n<p id=\"p5\" class=\"p5\" style=\"text-align: justify; border-image: initial; -webkit-text-size-adjust: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Light', Helvetica, 'Droid Sans', Arial, 'Arial Unicode', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; padding: 0px; margin: 1.25em 0px 1.25em 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">The invitation to the unveiling ceremony states that Mr.\u00a0Liebster \u201cwas firmly convinced that Christian values could bring out the best in people.\u201d Wolfram Slupina, a spokesman for Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Germany, comments: \u201cWe are glad that the bravery of one of our many fellow worshippers who took a conscientious stand in the face of religious intolerance is being commemorated. This monument is truly a testament to the power of the Bible\u2019s message of peace and unity, to which Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses strive to be loyal.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em style=\"border-image: initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">Media Contact(s):<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em style=\"border-image: initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">International: J.\u00a0R.\u00a0Brown, Office of Public Information, tel. +1\u00a0718\u00a0560\u00a05000<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em style=\"border-image: initial; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; border: 0px initial initial;\">Germany: Wolfram Slupina, tel. +49\u00a06483\u00a041\u00a03110<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SELTERS, Germany\u2014A monument honoring the late Max Liebster, one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who endured over five years of imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps, was publicly dedicated on June\u00a021, 2013, in Lautertal-Reichenbach. The mayor and other&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-germany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6029,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/6029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}