Procrastination, Pessimism, and Indifference Kill: A Lesson from Leonore Goldschmidt
One of my worst sins is procrastination. My wife and I are direct opposites in this area. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her procrastinate. She makes me really look bad.
As a previous article of mine states, I’m a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist. In this way, I’m rarely disappointed and often pleasantly surprised in certain outcomes.
I am not indifferent. You can tell by that given the business I’m in.
Over the Christmas long weekend, I came across a documentary titled The Teacher Who Defied Hitler.
“In Nazi Germany, when bullying, discrimination, and violence become everyday realities for Jewish children, Leonore Goldschmidt defies the system and opens her own private school for Jewish youth.”
This is a wonderful story. Leonore Goldschmidt saw the writing on the wall. Instead of waiting for the next Nazi boot to drop, she sprung into action. While others around her were saying that it couldn’t get any worse, it got worse, and they were caught in the maelstrom.
She set up a school to prepare young German Jews for a life elsewhere. She hired an English teacher from Great Britain to teach the children English.
“It was an oasis in the heart of hell. A sanctuary that never should have existed. In the mid-1930’s, as the wheels of Hitler’s “Final Solution” began rolling towards the greatest mass genocide in history, a Jewish school blossomed in the heart of Nazi Berlin. Functioning in plain sight of Nazi officials, the Goldschmidt Schule, became a refuge and a place of safety for hundreds of Jewish children. How did this school come to exist? Who were the brave leaders behind it? Why did the Nazis allow it to thrive? And what became of the children who attended this haven from the horrors of Nazi Germany?”
Her school was one of the last targets of the Nazis. In a clever tactic, she went to the British Embassy transferring title of the school building to the British teacher thus making it British property. This happened in the nick of time. The Nazis were about to burn it down.
Thousands of children got out of Germany, many of them without their parents, because of the efforts of Leonore Goldschmidt and others. She did not procrastinate, let the implosion of tyranny immobilize her, become indifferent to what she was seeing happen right before her eyes:
We have an election coming up this year. The time is now to prepare for it. Save some extra money to donate to a good candidate. Get informed on the issues. Find out who our political enemies are. It’s easy when it comes to Democrats but more difficult when it comes to Republicans.
All is not lost. The Democrats are worried. Obama has lost some of his protective media coverage.
Now is the time to stand up for what we believe in. It took a bearded guy from Louisiana to teach conservatives a lesson. Stand up . . . Speak up . . . Don’t back down.
It’s time for states to say no to the Federal government and its overreaching courts.