Learning from history

We often hear words to the effect that those who do not learn from history must repeat it.

It appears that we in the United States of America have begun the slow march to reliving what happened in communist Russia and Nazi Germany in regard to freedom of religion and conscience. In those countries, people were allowed degrees of these freedoms so long as they were exercised solely within the confines of a house of worship. Religious acts or any expression or practice of religious beliefs or conscience were forbidden in the public arena. Such expressions or applications, overt or covert, outside the walls of houses of worship were dealt with quickly, and often brutally. Many religious leaders who would not be silenced in the public arena were first threatened. If the threats did not achieve the desired effect, they were then imprisoned. A good number eventually paid with their lives.

There are many who will say, "This could never happen in the United States of America." How many people in Germany said these same words in the late 1920s and early 1930s?

LAWRENCE AESCHLIMANN, Cape Girardeau