Martin Neimoller, a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, summed up eloquently the final result of not getting involved. “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.”

Neimoller lived to know the full import of the words Edmund Burke wrote a hundred and fifty years earlier, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for enough good men to do nothing.”

The story of the Good Samaritan teaches us a powerful lesson about the need to get involved if we are to make a difference.

Tags: involved, World War II