A memorial to commemorate Jehovah's Witnesses persecuted by Germany's Nazi regime was inaugurated in a Berlin park on Wednesday, 81 years after the end of World War II.
“This memorial is dedicated to the people who suffered bitter injustice and yet time and again demonstrated humanity,” said Julia Klöckner, president of the Bundestag, during the unveiling ceremony in the Tiergarten park.
Members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian-based religious movement that originated in the US in the 19th century and was also known at the time as the Earnest Bible Students, were systematically persecuted in Germany and elsewhere in Europe during Nazi rule from 1933 to 1945.
Members refused to give the Hitler salute, did not join state organizations and helped others who were being persecuted, according to the federal foundation operating the memorial.
The foundation also runs Berlin's main Holocaust memorial, a sprawling site in the city centre located not far from the memorial for Jehovah's Witnesses.
"Almost 14,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses - women and men - were imprisoned, including 4,200 in concentration camps, where they were stigmatized with a ‘purple triangle,'" the foundation says on its website.
At least 1,750 Jehovah’s Witnesses were killed during the Nazi dictatorship.
Towering 5 metres above ground, the bronze memorial was designed by artist Matthias Leeck to resemble a tree that remains steadfast even though its branches have been cut off.
The memorial was erected near the goldfish pond in the Tiergarten park where a group of Jehovah's Witnesses was arrested by the Gestapo police on August 22, 1936, according to the foundation.
At the time, members used to meet at a chair hire located near the pond to secretly exchange information.
"The Gestapo carried out its round-up right here, where 17 courageous people subsequently lost their lives," said Wolfram Weimer, Germany's culture commissioner, during the ceremony, which was attended by around 1,000 guests.
Lawmakers voted in 2023 to set up a memorial for Jehovah's Witnesses persecuted under the Nazi.
During the event, Bundestag President Klöckner noted that even after the end of Nazi rule, reservations about some religious communities persisted.
"Their faith remained alien and suspect to many people. Their persecution and suffering were not sufficiently recognized," Klöckner said, in a bid to explain why it had taken so long for the memorial to be set up.
