We recently received a note from a Christian Scientist who lives in Germany and has witnessed firsthand the events and changes of the last half century. This person relates her experiences as a student of Christian Science throughout the years since 1938.
During the Second World War, I lived in a large town in what became East Germany. There was an active Christian Science church there. In 1941 the Nazi government closed the church and placed the members in prison for some time. After the war, when I had lost everything, I returned to my native town in West Germany, and together with friends we first met in a group and eventually organized a Christian Science Society.
During those early years, in spite of the oppression of religion, I had been able to keep a copy of the Bible and of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. After the Berlin Wall was built, there was no possibility for open practice of religion at all in East Germany. Yet in those times when our churches were closed in 1941, I had said to my friends again and again, "One day we shall reopen our churches. It is not possible to forbid God."
