THEY CAME FIRST 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 trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
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 no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoeller Lutheran Pastor
This statement, attributed to Pastor Niemoeller, has become a legendary expression of the lesson of the Holocaust. Niemoeller had delivered anti-Semitic sermons early in the Nazi regime. He later opposed Hitler and was sent to a concentration camp.