Seventy years ago when Rudolf Graichen was pressured to join the Hitler Youth, he was the only student in his class to refuse
the uniform.
Graichen, a Nazi prison survivor, stood in front of a packed 150 Columbia on Wednesday night. Graichen spoke to community members during “An Untold Story of the Holocaust,” and he emphasized the importance of standing up for what you
believe is right, even if you stand alone.
The University’s Department of history and nonprofit organization Stand Firm Education Group sponsored the event, which focused on the Nazi persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses during the Holocaust and included a 30-minute documentary film.
“We should have the conviction to stand up for what we know is right,” said Graichen, who was born in Germany in 1925. During the rise of Hitler, Jehovah’s Witnesses were labeled as Communists because of their refusal to conform to the Nazi regime and greet others with ‘Heil Hitler,’ Graichen said.
“Everywhere you went, in the bakery, ‘Heil Hitler,’ when you leave, ‘Heil Hitler,’” Graichen said.
Because of the Christian group’s social and political defiance, the Nazis quickly targeted them, Graichen said. About 10,000 Witnesses were sent to prisons and concentration camps, and an estimated 2,000 died, according to the documentary “Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault.”
In 1937, Graichen’s father and the other men of his local congregation were arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to prison. At 12, Graichen was pressured to join the Hitler Youth, and was the only boy in his class to refuse.
“I thought I would rather drop dead then wear that uniform,” Graichen said. “People looked at me and thought ‘there is one little boy, he is different and he is not ashamed.’”
Graichen was sent to reform school and later sentenced to four years in prison in 1943, spending one year in solitary confinement.
“On my 18th birthday they put me on trial,” Graichen said. It was on that day that he saw his mother for the last time. She died in a Ravensbrück concentration camp, Graichen said.
Instead of wearing a Nazi uniform, Graichen bore a prison uniform with a purple triangle sewn on the chest, distinguishing him as a Jehovah’s Witness. Unlike other groups persecuted by the Nazi’s, Witnesses were given the option to sign away their faith and recognize the Nazi regime as the highest authority and could then be set free, according to Graichen.
The hatred and violence that fueled the Holocaust is still present in society, Graichen said. Hatred and persecution starts with indifference, which leads to ignorance and ends with participation, Graichen said.
“War is a learned behavior. Hatred, violence and tolerance are products of education or indoctrination,” said Randall Meadows,
co-coordinator of the event and member of the Stand Firm Education Group. “Making a moral stand is a choice and a responsibility.”
“For young people, it’s important to stand up for what is right. There’s so much injustice in the world,” Terri Suquitan, a Eugene local and Jehovah’s Witness, said.
Rachel Taylor, who brought her two young children to the event, said she wanted to hear about the history of this untold story by someone who had lived though it.
“Hate and violence can be learned, so the way of peace and caring can be as well,” Meadows said, adding that understanding the importance of nonviolent resistance is just as vital as taking a stand against prejudice and intolerance.