“First, they came for the socialists. I did not speak up because I was not a socialist. Next, they came for the trade unionists. I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews. I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me.”
These famous words were written or spoken by Martin Niemoeller, a German priest in the 1930s. Niemoeller held right-wing views and kept an acquiescent silence as enemies of the state were arrested, locked up in concentration camps or executed. Eventually, he too was locked up in a concentration camp.
