In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions, and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.
from: The Diary of a Young Girl
written by Anne Frank
Doubleday/Bantam Books, 1967
first published in 1947
first US edition, 1952
Yesterday (Monday), when I usually finish my thoughts, complete editing my typos, and re-read for clarity, I decided to do none of those things.
I had planned to post the nominations for the 2025 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I even had some of the research ready.
But, like I felt a few years ago when I decided to take a break from the news and re-post pieces that still seemed relevant to me, my blog felt inconsequential, unimportant, and even ephemeral in light of the firehose quantity and quality of the current news.
In October 2018, when I originally posted this piece, the first Trump regime was finding its footing. Children were being torn from their families in his “zero-tolerance” policy to stem immigration. He called Robert Muller’s investigations a “witch hunt,” which fueled the Me Too movement. He nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. And mid-term elections were one week away.
In 2021, when I reposted it, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were in office. The world was still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief package into law, which worked its way to the people who needed it most.
The Capitol Riot/Insurrection was in our rear-view mirror working its way through the Judicial System. Key portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were working their way through Congress. Biden brought the United States back into the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.
The relative calm lasted for four short years.
Now this post feels important enough to re-post yet again:
One of the most famous Holocaust poems of all time, "First They Came for the Jews," was written by a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
After recanting his support for Hitler and Nazism, Niemöller was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly avoided execution and was liberated by the Allies. He stayed in Germany and worked as a clergyman, pacifist, and anti-war activist. In his 1946 book, Niemöller talked publicly of Germany’s guilt for what Germany had done to the Jews. He was one of the first Germans to do so.
Niemöller’s poem is especially relevant now.
First, They Came For The Jews
by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
I found the text of the poem and information about Niemöller on this page at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Accessed on October 29, 2018. (verified October 19, 2021, and February 18, 2025)
Here is a modern adaptation:
When they came for the Jews and the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and the protestors, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and the dancers, I turned away
And when they came for me, I turned around and around, and there was nobody left...
(published in Hue and Cry, 1991)
You can find some other adaptations here:
http://webweaversworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/first-they-came-for-jews-variations-on.html
Shooting and killing praying people in a synagogue . . . because they were Jewish. I never thought that could *really* happen. But, in 2018, three days before my original post, it did. In the city next door to mine.
In 2025, I’m struggling with how to turn my anger, fear, pessimism, and grief into action.
Here’s my version of Neimöller’s poem:
When he fired FAA executives, I was unaware.
Then 67 people were killed in an airline crash. And three more in a
helicopter.
When he cancelled DEI, I was unaffected.
I looked away from my horror and disgust.
When he shuttered USAID and fired most of the personnel,
I called my Senators and Representative.
When he gave Department of Treasury access to the Musk-ovite,
I spoke out to my friends.
When he threatened to de-fund the Department of Education,
I cried.
When Amy Walter echoed Simon Rosenberg’s plea to write and call government officials,
I did.
When I do all these things, maybe nothing will change.
But maybe something will.
Please join me!
(10/19/21 update) On October 8, 2021, the director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, told a fourth-grade teacher to “make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing … perspective.” Find the article here.
(2/18/25 update): The paragraph above is right from the Education section of Project 2025.
I just finished reading an historical fiction for young readers, Freedom’s Game by Rosanne Tolin (Reycraft Books, 2024). The story takes place after the German occupation of France and tells of some children who were moved to a chateau a couple of years before the end of WWII and the Resistance workers who ran it. Well-developed characters and tight writing make a tension-filled read, even though we all know how the War ends. It feels very timely. Recommended.
-—Be curious! (and involved)
from: The Diary of a Young Girl
written by Anne Frank
Doubleday/Bantam Books, 1967
first published in 1947
first US edition, 1952
Yesterday (Monday), when I usually finish my thoughts, complete editing my typos, and re-read for clarity, I decided to do none of those things.
I had planned to post the nominations for the 2025 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I even had some of the research ready.
But, like I felt a few years ago when I decided to take a break from the news and re-post pieces that still seemed relevant to me, my blog felt inconsequential, unimportant, and even ephemeral in light of the firehose quantity and quality of the current news.
In October 2018, when I originally posted this piece, the first Trump regime was finding its footing. Children were being torn from their families in his “zero-tolerance” policy to stem immigration. He called Robert Muller’s investigations a “witch hunt,” which fueled the Me Too movement. He nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. And mid-term elections were one week away.
In 2021, when I reposted it, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris were in office. The world was still in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Biden signed a $1.9 trillion relief package into law, which worked its way to the people who needed it most.
The Capitol Riot/Insurrection was in our rear-view mirror working its way through the Judicial System. Key portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were working their way through Congress. Biden brought the United States back into the Paris Climate Accord and the World Health Organization.
The relative calm lasted for four short years.
Now this post feels important enough to re-post yet again:
One of the most famous Holocaust poems of all time, "First They Came for the Jews," was written by a Lutheran pastor and theologian, Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).
After recanting his support for Hitler and Nazism, Niemöller was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. He narrowly avoided execution and was liberated by the Allies. He stayed in Germany and worked as a clergyman, pacifist, and anti-war activist. In his 1946 book, Niemöller talked publicly of Germany’s guilt for what Germany had done to the Jews. He was one of the first Germans to do so.
Niemöller’s poem is especially relevant now.
First, They Came For The Jews
by Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
I found the text of the poem and information about Niemöller on this page at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site. Accessed on October 29, 2018. (verified October 19, 2021, and February 18, 2025)
Here is a modern adaptation:
When they came for the Jews and the blacks, I turned away
When they came for the writers and the thinkers and the radicals and the protestors, I turned away
When they came for the gays, and the minorities, and the utopians, and the dancers, I turned away
And when they came for me, I turned around and around, and there was nobody left...
(published in Hue and Cry, 1991)
You can find some other adaptations here:
http://webweaversworld.blogspot.com/2006/10/first-they-came-for-jews-variations-on.html
Shooting and killing praying people in a synagogue . . . because they were Jewish. I never thought that could *really* happen. But, in 2018, three days before my original post, it did. In the city next door to mine.
In 2025, I’m struggling with how to turn my anger, fear, pessimism, and grief into action.
Here’s my version of Neimöller’s poem:
When he fired FAA executives, I was unaware.
Then 67 people were killed in an airline crash. And three more in a
helicopter.
When he cancelled DEI, I was unaffected.
I looked away from my horror and disgust.
When he shuttered USAID and fired most of the personnel,
I called my Senators and Representative.
When he gave Department of Treasury access to the Musk-ovite,
I spoke out to my friends.
When he threatened to de-fund the Department of Education,
I cried.
When Amy Walter echoed Simon Rosenberg’s plea to write and call government officials,
I did.
When I do all these things, maybe nothing will change.
But maybe something will.
Please join me!
(10/19/21 update) On October 8, 2021, the director of curriculum and instruction for the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas, told a fourth-grade teacher to “make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has an opposing … perspective.” Find the article here.
(2/18/25 update): The paragraph above is right from the Education section of Project 2025.
I just finished reading an historical fiction for young readers, Freedom’s Game by Rosanne Tolin (Reycraft Books, 2024). The story takes place after the German occupation of France and tells of some children who were moved to a chateau a couple of years before the end of WWII and the Resistance workers who ran it. Well-developed characters and tight writing make a tension-filled read, even though we all know how the War ends. It feels very timely. Recommended.
-—Be curious! (and involved)
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