6 hours Ago
I recently became aware of a quote by Martin Niemöller (1892-1984), a Lutheran pastor in 1930s Germany, that seems very appropriate today. The following statement from 1946 by Niemöller is displayed prominently at the United States Holocaust Museum and is presented here for the edification of the reader: ADVERTISEMENT First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me. Niemöller was an early Nazi sympathizer who had a change of heart and was imprisoned in 1937 for his opposition to the Hitler regime.
He was eventually confined in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps and was released in 1945 by the Allies. After World War II, Niemöller openly spoke out about his early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart. His powerful words about guilt and responsibility still resonate today.
Niemöller declared that through silence, indifference, and inaction, Germans had been complicit in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt that it was particularly egregious that he and other German Protestant church leaders, whom he believed had positions of moral authority, chose to remain silent. Jim Peterson , Rochester.
