On July 18, 1939, evangelical pastor Paul Schneider died in the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.
"In the Bunker in which the dark isolation cells were located, I met Pastor Schneider; he was in the cell next to mine. Every morning he held a morning prayer for us prisoners, and because of that every time he was clubbed and tortured [...]. On Easter Sunday we suddenly heard the powerful words: "Thus says the Lord: I am the resurrection and the life. The long lines of prisoners stood at attention, deeply disturbed by the courage and energy of that indomitable will [...]. He could never utter more than a few sentences. Then we would hear the guards' cane blows crashing down on him..."
The memory of a fellow prisoner manifest how Paul Schneider had dedicated his life to the Gospel to the last.
A letter he wrote from Buchenwald, addressed to his family members, is preserved in the Shrine of the New Martyrs in the Basilica of San Bartolomeo all'Isola Tiberina in Rome.
