Search results
- It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939, as Ten Little Niggers, after an 1869 minstrel song that serves as a major plot element. The US edition was released in January 1940 with the title And Then There Were None, taken from the last five words of the song.
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › And_Then_There_Were_None
› Release date
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. A longer version by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, a charity established by the British government, is as follows: [4] First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out
People also ask
Who wrote 'first they came'?
What does first they came mean?
Who played Justice Wargrave in 'and then there were none'?
What order does the phrase 'I did not speak out' come from?
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. — Martin Niemöller . The author was a Lutheran pastor and theologian born in Germany in 1892. This quotation and many variations of it appeared in his public addresses in the 1930’s, and in the ...
Apr 11, 2023 · This Martin Niemöller quote originated after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. After the war, Niemöller was well-known for his opposition to the Nazi regime and as a former victim of Nazi persecution. In 1946, he traveled on a lecture tour in the western zones of Allied-occupied Germany.
Thus the quotation has often been called the bystanders' credo (declaration of belief). Right after the war in 1946 he wanted his German audiences to admit that they had failed morally, to accept their responsibility for the mass atrocities committed by their Nazi government in their name.
- Summary
- Structure and Form
- Literary Devices
- Detailed Analysis
- Similar Poetry
‘First They Came’ by Pastor Martin Neimölleris a powerful poem that explores the nature of responsibility in times of war and persecution. The poem speaks briefly about several of the groups hunted down and imprisoned or killed by the Nazis during WWII. The speaker acknowledges each of these and that he did nothing to stop them. By the end of the p...
‘First They Came’ by Pastor Martin Neimöller is a fifteen-line excerpt from a speech made by the pastor. The lines do not follow a specific rhyme scheme, although there are similarities in the endings used. These are seen through the repetition of the suffix “-ist” in the first few lines. Rather than appearing as a selective rhyme scheme or half-rh...
Neimöller uses several poetic techniques in ‘First They Came.’ These include, but are not limited to, repetition, epistrophe, and anaphora. Repetition is one of the most important techniques at work within these short lines. The words majority of the lines follow a repeating pattern of “Then they came for…” and “And I did not speak out / Because I ...
Lines 1-7
In the first lines of ‘First They Came,’ the speaker begins by using the phrase that later came to be used as the title. He addresses the fact that the Nazis first came for the Communists. He knew this well, and despite the fact that men and women were being taken from their homes, forced into slavery, worked to their deaths, and murdered, he did not speak out. He was not a Communist and, therefore, could ignore what was happening. This is a pattern that repeatsthroughout the poem. He says th...
Lines 8-15
In the next few lines of ‘First They Came,’the speaker adds that he did not speak out when they “came for the Jews.” It is with this reference that a reader should be aware, if they do not have access to the context of the poem before reading it, what the speaker is alluding to. The Nazis made their way through the different groups that offended them, and then, finally, things changed. The speaker was put at risk. “They came for me,” he says in the thirteenth line. In an expected but still po...
Readers who enjoyed this poem should also consider reading some related poems. For example: 1. ‘The Measures Taken’ by Erich Fried– is a powerful piece about war and loss. 2. ‘August 6’ by Tōge Sankichi– is an emotional poem that explores the aftermath of the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima during World War II. 3. ‘Courage’ by Anna Akhmat...
- Female
- October 9, 1995
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
Nov 6, 2018 · Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. That’s the most well-known version and construction of this statement about the consequences of standing by while something immoral is happening, of the responsibility of the bystanders.
The third and most recent British adaptation aired as And Then There Were None on BBC One in December 2015, as a drama serial broadcast on three consecutive nights, produced in cooperation with Acorn Media and Agatha Christie Productions.
