Thoughts are Free: A Quaker Youth Group in Nazi Germany

Because this report concerns a Quaker group, I think it important to call attention to some of the basic principles of the "Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)," often misconceived as a welfare organization. We frequently characterize our faith as a "religion without dogma," because without ritual and priests--we practice "silent worship" in the conviction that God can be revealed directly to every human being. In the silence, participants often express vocally what moves them. We believe that, no matter how hidden it may sometimes be, there is in everyone something "of God." This may be more universally expressed as "something good."

For Quakers, from the very outset, religious belief and political action have been inextricably bound together. The story that follows is that of one attempt to realize this conviction even under the conditions of the Nazi regime.