The Purple Triangle was the identifying symbol of the followers of religion of Jehovah's Witnesses in Nazi concentration camps in the time of Hitler. They are part of the often-forgotten victims of the Holocaust. During the Hitler regime and the Second World War, Jehovah's Witnesses, for doctrine-related reasons, refused to join the Nazi system, and consequently became the target of persecution and even the condemnation of the death camps because of their faith. Religious freedom was just a concept at the time. The Governing Body of Jehovah's Witnesses approved seminars with lectures to disseminate the purple triangles as The Forgotten Victims of Naziism.

One of the highlights of the seminars was to view the video documentary Jehovah's Witnesses to resist the Nazi attack. The events were intended not only to remember the atrocities committed by the Nazis but also to raise awareness about this tragic event. The special edition of this video to classrooms, by James N. Pellechia, Department of Public Relations World Headquarters of Jehovah's Witnesses, contains several minutes of comments and historical accounts and facts of the survivors of concentration camps. A copy of the video and suggestions on how to use it in classrooms are being provided free to teachers.

With the heading "Witnesses Recall Pursuit," the newspaper in Brazil called O Estado de Sao Paulo  said that the discrimination recorded between 1933 and 1945 affected the lives of some 10 thousand Germans who professed the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, contrary to the warmongering policy Adolf Hitler; and more than 2000 Jehovah's Witnesses were killed without mercy. The Nazis persecuted--in addition to Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and communists--Christians who refused to join the scheme. This is what Jehovah's Witnesses have been seeking to publish and debate in several countries, including Brazil and Germany.

The data highlighted positive examples of the human capacity to resist evil and to love, as being lessons for future generations. Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses was not armed. They resisted because they cling to their religious principles in spite of prejudice, propaganda against and persecution.

Speakers also drew attention to the fact that Jehovah's Witnesses have been victims by choice, whether they were randomly or strategically picked. The Nazi war against the Jews sought their annihilation and left them with few options for escape, explained Dr. Abraham J. Peck, Executive Director of Holocaust Museum Houston, Texas, USA. The Nazi persecution against Jehovah's Witnesses sought to eradicate religion. Therefore, Jehovah's Witnesses were given the Nazis' offer of freedom if they agreed to renounce their faith. Most of the Witnesses chose to suffer and face death with the other victims of Naziism to oppose the Nazi ideology of hate and violence.  A very sad event in history, and too sad to find it it still happening today in some countries such as Midle East ones . . . too sad.