923. CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS IMPRISONED AT FORT LEAVENWORTH A lengthy correspondence consisting of approximately 120 letters together with related documents detailing the cases of two brothers who were imprisoned for resisting military service due to their religious beliefs (Jehovah's Witnesses). The collection dates between 1942 and 1948. The collection includes numerous letters from the brothers Robert and Waldemar Schultze of Buffalo New York, to several correspondents including their mother and Robert's fiancee as well as the Red Cross, The Friend's Service Committee. Both of the brothers were imprisoned for some time at Leavenworth for their refusal to follow orders. This vast correspondence is far too lengthy to quote here but one letter from Waldemar to his mother concerning the recent induction of his brother Robert is quite telling: "...I hear that Bob has been inducted into the army... he is going to have plenty of trouble, and I expect will cause me additional trouble... He is going to be invited to fight and called dirty names by peanut-sized moronic squirts who don't know enough to come in out of the rain, and he will have to tell them he doesn't believe in fighting. They'll ask him what he'll do after they hit him, and he'll have to tell them he'll do nothing. Of course they won't hit him, and in case they do they're liable to military trial if he reports it. So they won't take a chance unless he displays belligerency... In the guardhouse he will find it a little easier than it was for me... toward the end of my previous stay there [Leavenworth] almost all the guards had overcome their initial antipathy, and some were even becoming friendly...." Waldemar had his trials at Leavenworth. When ordered to work, in many cases he refused: "...when I was taken out on my first prisoner's detail, to saw tree trunks with a 2 man saw for the cookstoves, I almost froze, standing still, thinly clad, with the weather about zero. To the threats of the guard standing here menacing me with a shotgun I retorted that my belief prevented me from doing any work of military importance under military direction, and that he could shoot if he wished, but I would not work... On the next day I was taken out on a coal detail.... when we arrived at the coal yard an the others received coal shovels to load coal tucks, I refused to do the work, whereupon I was told to stand against the far edge of one of the coal trucks being loaded by three prisoners with shovels... Fortunately, due to the sympathy of thee other prisoner for me... no large pieces of coal, or at least no pieces large enough to injure me, landed on me, despite the constant urging of the guard who kept telling the other prisoners he'd like to see them shovel coal right at me... but they tried to avoid this..." Much more fine content. An excellent collection worthy of further research. $700-900