“First they came…” is a poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.
- “In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
- And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
- And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
- And then… they came for me… And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”
Is that the inevitible end to this story?
