The poem First they came... was written by Martin Niemöller. It is a criticism of the way people in Nazi Germany did not stop the Nazi Party from treating other people poorly.
The poem is as follows:[1]
- First they came 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 Catholics,
- and I didn’t speak up,
- because I was a Protestant.
- Then they came for me,
- and by that time there was no one
- left to speak up for me.
References