Statement, announcements, and reactions
French statement :
His wife Simone, cousin Alfred and family, the local congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Arnold-Liebster Foundation announce with deep sadness that
MAX LIEBSTER
was gathered to his ancestors on Wednesday, May 28, 2008
During his lifelong struggle of 93 years for the real life, he never doubted the light of the messianic prophecies. Because he clung to that glimmer of hope in the midst of torments, even in the concentration camps, he could go to rest in peace. He believed in the promise recorded by the prophet Isaiah (chapter 26, verse 19), “Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.”
A Bible-based discourse will be given on Monday, June 2, 2008
Bergsträsser Anzeiger – Saturday, May 31, 2008 :
(Obituary)
Honorary Citizen and Founder dies.
In Mourning for Max Liebster
Lautertal. Not long ago his hometown sent the honorary citizen of Lautertal and foundation founder an expression of appreciation and well wishes on his birthday. On Wednesday he passed away at age 93 at his home in France.
Max Liebster was born in 1915 in Reichenbach and also attended school here, together with, among others, the early community accountant Heinrich Weyhrauch. Because he was a Jew, the National Socialists arrested Liebster and put him in concentration camps. In the Buchenwald camp, the Reichenbacher resister Jakob Kindinger saved his life in 1945. In 1994, together with his wife Simone Arnold-Liebster, he embarked to tell the world about his experiences and to recount “the lessons of history.” Liebster’s book Crucible of Terror: A Story of Survival Through the Nazi Storm is a moving drama of a persecuted Jew, but also of the new courage for life that he gained from the unmistakable religious convictions and the moral resistance of Jehovah’s Witnesses. With his wife he established the Arnold-Liebster Foundation in 2004 and was named an honorary citizen “in recognition of his tireless enlightenment and peace work against forgetting.”
“His love of God and humanity, his courageous fight for peace and the importance of good conscience, and his constant call reminding us not to forget will ever remain in the memory of those who knew him. What a loss to us all,” wrote Uwe Klages, president of the Arnold-Liebster Foundation, in an initial statement.
The funeral will be held on Monday, June 2, at 2 p.m. at the cemetery, followed by a memorial discourse at 4 p.m. at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Lautertal announcement :
We bid goodbye to
Max Liebster,
Honorary citizen of the community of Lautertal (Germany),
who passed away on May 28, 2008, at the age of 93, at his home in France.
He contributed greatly to the illumination of the mechanisms of persecution
implemented by the Nazis during the “Third Reich.”
His love of God and humanity, his courageous fight to defend peace,
and his constant call to remembrance will ever remain in our memory.
Max Liebster has left his mark.
We will hold him in honourable memory.
For the community of Lautertal, Jürgen Kaltwasser, Mayor
For the Civil Commonwealth, Heidi Adam, Chair
