In the absence of protest consider the following. It is edited from wikipedia but confirms to my general recollection from the past (although I didn't know about the US bowdlerisation).


"They came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

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 Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

The above is the text preferred by Pastor Niemoller of his famous saying. But there is some disagreement over the exact wording and date of origin. It may have been presented differently by Niemöller on different occasions. Research traced the text to several speeches given by Niemöller in 1946.

The wording remains controversial, both in terms of its provenance, and the substance and order of the groups that are mentioned in its many versions. While Niemöller's published 1946 speeches mention Communists, the incurably ill, Jews or Jehovah's Witnesses (depending on which speech), and people in occupied countries, the 1955 text, a paraphrase by a German professor in an interview, lists Communists, Socialists, "the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on," and ends with "the Church".

At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, the quotation is on display, but is altered so that there is no mention of communists, even though communists have been mentioned in every version of the quote given. The Holocaust Museum website, however, gives a thorough discussion of the history of the quotation.

The "official" version of the statement (as preferred by Niemöller) is also on display at the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Israel.







For an alleged former socialist Mr Fluids, you seem awfully keen on not doing anything to upset the social order.