Johann Ludwig Rachuba was a Jehovah’s Witness1 who lived in the town of Datteln in northwestern Germany. He was a miner by trade, and he and his wife Emma had three children. Rachuba was 39 years old when he was arrested by the Gestapo in June 1935. He was imprisoned in a series of concentration camps, where he endured years of cruel punishments by Nazi SS guards. The card featured here describes some of the abuse he experienced.
Although he had no criminal record, the Gestapo confined Rachuba to so-called “protective custody.”2 The Gestapo used the status of “protective custody” to imprison people indefinitely in concentration camps without a trial or the possibility of judicial review. Rachuba was first imprisoned at Esterwegen concentration camp before he and the other prisoners were transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.
Jehovah’s Witnesses imprisoned in concentration camps developed a reputation for refusing to obey orders that violated their religious beliefs—but otherwise being well-behaved prisoners. Some imprisoned Witnesses were assigned to forced labor in SS homes without guards because they were nonviolent and did not believe in trying to escape.3 But others sometimes became the target of cruel punishments for refusing to obey orders.4
Rachuba’s card lists several such punishments—including many beatings. Camp authorities often beat him for not showing proper obedience, including refusing to do forced labor, defying camp orders in front of the other prisoners, declining to stand or remove his hat during the German national anthem, speaking out against the Nazi government, and laughing at a Nazi camp leader during a speech.
The Sachsenhausen camp administration believed that Rachuba’s acts of defiance were inspiring other imprisoned Witnesses to resist SS demands.5 The featured card shows that Rachuba had refused to sign a statement pledging to break all ties with the Jehovah’s Witnesses and rejoin the so-called “national community” (“Volksgemeinschaft”) of Nazi Germany.6 Camp authorities believed that many other Witnesses might sign these statements if Rachuba could be made to sign—and Nazi leaders were eager to enlist more so-called “Aryan” men in the German armed forces as increasing numbers of German soldiers were captured, wounded, or killed.
Other prisoners would later recall how guards repeatedly tortured Rachuba but did not break his will to resist. One fellow Jehovah’s Witness remembered that Rachuba endured 25 blows with a club without groaning. Another prisoner remembered how Rachuba kept his composure even when the SS beat him so badly that he could not even crawl. In 1947, a fellow prisoner testified that two SS guards at Sachsenhausen even ordered several prisoners to dig a hole and then had Rachuba buried up to his neck before the guards urinated on his head and face.7
Rachuba was transferred to Niederhagen concentration camp near Wewelsburg,8 where he died in September 1942. His exact cause of death was not recorded—his death certificate only states that he died from “physical weakness.” Rachuba’s experience illustrates the terrible abuse that many Jehovah’s Witnesses within the Nazi camp system faced from SS guards.