This article explores the ways in which a fifth-grade class of Greek Cypriot students and their teacher perceived and negotiated the meanings of empathy for the "other" in the context of ethnic conflict in Cyprus. The findings suggest that the process of engaging with empathy is full of fractures and failures, possibilities and impossibilities. Children's emotional ambivalences to empathize with the "other" are embedded in the politics of conflict, yet there are also moments of transcendence. (Contains 1 note.)