Chinese state broadcaster uses Holocaust poem to liken Hong Kong protesters to Nazis
- CCTV tweets adapted version of ‘First They Came …’ claiming demonstrators ‘trampled freedom of the press’ and ‘seized and tortured the drivers’
- Original, by German pastor Martin Niemoller, is about the moral cowardice of intellectuals who didn’t act to stop the persecution of minority groups
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV has posted an adapted version of the famous Holocaust poem First They Came … on Twitter, likening Hong Kong’s anti-government protesters to Nazis intent on attacking the city’s residents.
The poem, posted on Saturday to an account with more than 775,000 followers, claimed that protesters had “trampled the freedom of the press” and “seized and tortured the drivers”.
The original version of the poem, written by German pastor Martin Niemoller and popularised after World War II, is about the moral cowardice of German intellectuals who did not act to stop Nazi persecution of minority groups based on their political and religious views.
It has also been interpreted as a warning against the creeping political apathy that led to the horrors of the Holocaust. Versions of it are displayed at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington and the Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
More recently, protesters in the US have held placards at rallies that use the poem to refer to US President Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on minority groups including women, disabled people, Muslims, African-Americans and immigrants.
Many Twitter users from Hong Kong and elsewhere were angered by the state broadcaster’s tweet, saying the poem had been used in a highly inappropriate context.
