During the Second World War, it was a religious group widely persecuted by Nazi Germany mainly because of its refusal to recognize the authority of the state, its strong opposition to the war and its conscientious objection to military service and use of the fascist salute. It is estimated that during the holocaust a total of 1490 Jehovah's Witnesses died, including 253 sentenced to death. The first figure differs from that of the European Circle of former deportees and interned Jehovah's Witnesses, a group of Jehovah's Witnesses that accounts for about 2,500 dead, in addition to approximately ten thousand incarcerated and deported, and in 97% the percentage of German Jehovah's Witnesses persecuted in one way or another by Nazism. In the concentration camps, the so-called "Bibelforscher" wore a purple triangle sewn on clothing as identification.
