“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 out for me.”
– Martin Niemoller
These words were written by a pastor imprisoned in Dachau, one of the three concentration camps in Germany, for publically opposing the Fuhrer and his agenda. He shared these thoughts after his liberation from Dachau at the end of WW II. They were an indictment of the Church’s unwillingness to speak out earlier in Hitler’s rise to power… and an admission that, ultimately, even good people can be complicit in evil deeds by their own inaction. Silence in the face of evil can lead to our own destruction as well.
So
why am I sharing such a dark quote when I normally seek to lift people? Because I’m hoping that this quote WILL lift
people... out of their indifference.
