After his arrest, Simone’s father was initially imprisoned at the Schirmeck-Vorbruck internment camp in Labroque. This prison camp had been opened in mid-July 1940 “for individuals, whose behavior would damage German authority in the region” and “to teach disobedient elements in Alsace proper attitudes to work and the political order of the German Reich.”* The list of so-called “undesirables” and “disobedient elements” followed the usual categories applied by the Germans in all occupied territories
and also included Jehovah’s Witnesses. Since their beliefs did not allow them to render unconditional obedience to any state, the Witnesses in Alsace and Lorraine were subjected to the same per-secution that other Witnesses had been facing in Nazi Germany after 1933. Simone’s father, Adolphe Arnold, was subsequently moved from Schirmeck to Dachau and Mauthausen-Gusen con-centration camps, and later liberated in May 1945 at the Ebensee subcamp of Mauthausen.

After 1941, Simone came under increasing physical and psy-chological intimidation at school to conform to her classmates’ behavior, since she had refused to use the “Heil Hitler” salute or to join the League of German Girls (Bund deutscher Mädel ). Intimi-dation and retaliation extended to school-age Jehovah’s Witness children both in Nazi Germany and in incorporated Alsace and Lorraine. When Witness children refused to enroll either in the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls or to conform to the
norms of Nazi social and political behavior, school officials re-moved them from parental custody and sent them to Nazi homes and juvenile correctional institutions.