why people do it..death at auschwitz, page-2

Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe, aided Jewish refugees during World War II. In 1941 he was “shipped to [the Nazi concentration camp at] Auschwitz, where he volunteered his life in the place of the condemned inmate Franciszek Gajowniczek. First starved, he was finally injected with phenol and cremated.” (Encyclopædia Britannica) He became a self-sacrificing martyr—an exception to the general rule as far as the Protestant and Catholic religions were concerned.
During the Nazi period in Germany (1933-45), Jehovah’s Witnesses suffered terrible persecution for daring to remain neutral and for refusing to serve in Hitler’s war effort. Thousands were sent to the dreaded concentration camps, where many were executed and others died from mistreatment. Yet, they did not have to suffer and die. They had a choice. They were offered a way out. If they would just sign a paper renouncing their faith, they could walk away free. The vast majority chose not to sign and became not only victims of the Nazi terror but also martyrs. Thus, while all martyrs are victims, only a few victims could and did choose to become martyrs. They were victorious in the face of death.
Impartial testimony from many non-Witnesses proves this fact. “The Swiss Pastor Bruppacher observed in 1939 that ‘While men who call themselves Christians have failed in the decisive tests, these unknown witnesses of Jehovah, as Christian martyrs, are maintaining unshakable opposition against coercion of conscience and heathen idolatry . . . They suffer and bleed because, as Jehovah’s witnesses and candidates for the Kingdom of Christ, they refuse the worship of Hitler and the Swastika.’”
However, it is not in Nazi Germany only that Jehovah’s Witnesses have maintained their integrity in the face of death. They have had to show their courage in the face of Communism, Fascism, and other kinds of political tyranny, as well as religious opposition. Even in the so-called democratic countries of the West, the Witnesses have faced violence.