Bartholomew Barker

Reading my history texts, I imagined
what I would’ve done if I’d lived
in Germany during the War.

How I would’ve resisted, hidden Jews
in my basement, risked my life,
my freedom to foil the fascists.

But having grown-up and fat,
I sign petitions, write letters
to the editor and merely vote.

I don’t think I could fit a secret
room behind my poetry bookshelf,
much less an underground railroad.

I used to wonder how the Good Germans
could have been so blind?

Now I know and I am shamed.

Bartholomew Barker works with Living Poetry. He has published a full-length collection, a chapbook, and been nominated for a Pushcart and the Best of the Net. His work has recently appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Panoply, Tipton Poetry Journal, Gyroscope Review and the Naugatuck River Review among others. bartbarkerpoet.com

This poem “Learning About Nazis in High School” was originally published in Dissident Voice and later appeared in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age — Summer 2025, published by The Chaos Section Poetry Project. We’ll be featuring each poem from the collection individually in the weeks ahead. You can read the full collection or download a free PDF of the chapbook here.