behind these doors (through the jewish quarter)

This was a poem written in Prague, Czech Republic. We toured the Jewish Quarter, which had seen many different waves of oppression. The poem talks about the invasion of the Nazi’s in WWII. In Prague, Hitler made plans to preserve the museum to remember an “extinct race,” which was beyond disturbing.

Behind these iron doors lie shallow graves,
Twelve layers deep of staggered remains,

Fear; the preamble of suffering,
Suffering; the preamble of death,
Death, the product of insanity,

“Let us preserve the museum for a race extinct,
Everything else must go, even the children,”
The madman boasts while combing the streets,

As trains are filled to the brim with the walking dead,
Innocent children draw pictures, now a ghostly reminder,
Of disasters beyond our comprehension, only a half-century past,

Insanity in high places reeks of evil,
The streets are reduced to rubble,
People to numbers, then to dust,

While the count continues growing,
Holy insurgents plot plans to kill the madman,
To save the innocent, but the innocent die instead,

For nothing more than beliefs,
Yet we are all much the same.

Desperation closes in,
The madman puts a bullet in his skull,
And the world becomes a better place.