“First they came for the Jews.” Many Americans remember that line as the beginning of a confession, offered in 1946 by Martin Niemoller and taught to schoolchildren ever since. First they came for the Jews, then they came for the Communists and the trade unionists; when they finally came for him, he said, “there was no one left to speak for me.” In its simple and steady progression, it is a powerful illustration of the consequences of apathy. But it is a distortion. In Niemoeller’s original version, the Nazis first came for the Communists, as indeed they did. The distinction...
Monitoring Antisemitism Intel
