Shooting in Pittsburgh

Saturday morning on the radio I heard there was a multiple shooting in Pittsburgh.  My sister lives in Pittsburgh.

The shooting was at a synagogue.  It is near my sister’s church.  We’ve been in the neighborhood.

 My brother-in-law’s brother and family are Jewish.  They are members of another synagogue.  They are safe.

Nearby Carnegie Mellon University is locked down.  My sister’s nephew attends CMU.

It gets closer and closer.

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.

"First They Came for the Jews," was written by Martin Niemöller, a Lutheran pastor and theologian who was born in Germany in 1892. At one time a supporter of Hitler’s policies, he eventually recanted and as a result was arrested and confined to the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1938 to 1945. After narrowly avoiding execution at the hands of the Nazis, he was liberated by the Allies in 1945 and continued his career in Germany as a clergyman, pacifist and anti-war activist.