Simone Arnold Liebster
More than 500 minor Jehovah’s Witness children in Nazi Germany were involuntarily separated from their parents after for-mal judicial proceedings. Simone Arnold was one of them, expelled from school after being subjected to physical and psychological brutality and pressures to conform. At the age of twelve, she was taken from her mother’s custody and involuntarily transferred to the Wessenberg Erziehungsanstalt, a re-form school, in Konstanz (Germany). Plunged into a world of per-secution and lacking contact with her parents, Simone Arnold had to surrender her adolescence in order to survive. The world of child-hood and adolescence is usually a time of growth and development. For children trapped under Nazi rule, life became an inverted world of shrinking horizons and terror.
Her story is one of hope, strength, and courage. Despite the harsh and tragic Nazi period, Simone Liebster’s reveals her courage in maintaining her social and religious values. Here trails and experiences enable us to understand the fate of Jehovah’s Witness children during the Holocaust.
For a brief autobiography visit:
http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/lmarfogl/project/simone.html
Or
http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/LIEBSTER.HTM
You can also read her book:
Facing The Lion: Memoirs of a Girl in Nazi Europe by Simone Arnold Liebster
Forward, You Witnesses!
Performer: Simone Arnold Liebster
Lyricist: Erich Frost
Composer: Erich Frost
