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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Be

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

coldtea 9y ago
Something like that. Although this perhaps shows a society split into various fractions (jews, blacks, trade unionists, gays, etc), and each fraction is taken one by one, until it's time they come to get the author's fraction. I.e. everybody eventually gets "taken". Whereas in my example, it's more a society that has a small amount of people who work for change, and they are the ones that get "put away"/stopped. In this latter case, nobody explicitly comes to "get/put away" the majority. Their lives just deteriorate (worse laws, more discrimination, etc.) and they don't even know why.