Step #4: Empathy -- They Came for Me

In an earlier post we included the mousetrap fable that we used in our study of Karen Armstrobg's book "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate life." That story tells in simple words what German pastor Martin Niemoeller taught us at the end of World War II:

In Germany they came first for the Communists, 

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. 

Then they came for the Jews, 

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. 

Then they came for the trade unionists, 

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. 

Then they came for the Catholics, 

and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. 

Then they came for me, 

and by that time no one was left to speak up.  

Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor