Things we don't discuss
06/09/25 02:14
Forty-five years ago, I worked part-time at a small radio station in southwestern North Dakota. The station manager's father was named Bill. He was an old-time journalist who was mainly retired but appeared on-air for a half-hour call-in show on weekday mornings. That program immediately followed my segment, allowing me to finish the paperwork and preparation for the next day’s show. When the call-in program was finished, we would go to a local cafe for coffee before I headed up the hill to the church and my main job. Bill and his son were active members of the congregation we served. The father was the treasurer of the church when I served as pastor.
Over the years, Bill shared many stories with me about his life. He was a veteran of the United States Army, having served in Europe during World War II. I’m not sure of all of the details of his service, but at least part of the time, he was a journalist with the Stars and Stripes newspaper. In April of 1945, he was traveling with the 80th Infantry Division when they were sent to take control of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Edward R. Murrow, the famous CBS radio reporter, was also part of the press detachment that arrived at the camp.
Bill had a lot of war stories, and he would occasionally tell them to the gang at the coffee shop. There were, however, some stories that I heard in other settings, often in the driveway of his home as he walked me out after I had paid a visit. As a young pastor, I was learning to listen to the stories that World War II veterans shared with me in private. At first, I didn’t understand why they were telling me the stories. Later, I learned that they were stories that they had not previously told to anyone. There was an air of secrecy that surrounded service during World War II. The famous slogan, “Loose lips sink ships,” served as a reminder that in wartime, information was a powerful weapon and that there were things that needed to be kept secret to preserve the ability to surprise and shock the enemy. Decades later, the things that they had witnessed continued to haunt the soldiers, and they sometimes sought opportunities to talk to someone about them. A young pastor was a reminder of the young pastors who had served as chaplains during their military service and had become trusted confidants to share the horrors they had witnessed.
The things that people told me in confidence as a pastor are not my stories to share, but part of Bill’s story is documented history that has been reported in other places. Part of the liberation of Buchenwald involved taking German civilian citizens on a tour of the camp. Because they had been subjected to Nazi propaganda, it was feared that the Germans would not take responsibility for the atrocities that occurred in the camps. Rather than tell them about what had happened in the camps, people were taken and shown crowded barracks, where as many as 1,200 people were housed in horse stables, five to a bunk. They were forced to smell the stink of sick prisoners and rotting bodies. Some were forced to participate in the burial of deceased camp inmates.
A couple of years before Bill told me some of his wartime stories, I had toured Dachau, one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany. The camp was initially established to house Hitler’s political opponents. Later, it was expanded to house Jews, Romani, as well as Germans, whom the Nazi Party considered to be dissidents. By the end of World War II, the camp had become the center of a system of 100 sub-camps, located throughout southern Germany and Austria. By the time of our visit, the camp had been cleaned up. Most of the barracks had been torn down, with a few remaining as a museum of the brutal treatment and terror of the concentration camp system.
At Dachau, as was the case at Buchenwald, when liberation occurred, local citizens of the town near the camp claimed that they were unaware of what was happening inside the camp. At Dachau, there were 32,000 documented deaths and thousands more that remain undocumented. It is hard to understand how such horrors could occur in a community without some local knowledge of what was happening. The Nazi propaganda system was powerful and effective, however. We will never know if the camps were allowed to carry out their gruesome work next to civilian populations because of official propaganda and lies about their mission, or willful ignorance of the surrounding population. Probably there were elements of both.
My limited experiences and knowledge of Nazi concentration camps have left an imprint on me. It is one of the reasons I am fearful of the growing ICE detention centers in the community where I now live. We know very little of what goes on in those places. People are arrested and detained in the facilities without formal charges or judicial procedures. Their families are often unaware of the reasons for their detention and frequently don’t know the location of their loved ones. Agents seize people from job sites, schools, immigration offices, and other places.
More troubling to me is that I often encounter family and friends who are hesitant to talk about what is happening. “It makes me sick to think about it.” “Let’s talk about something else.” I have long conversations with people close to me, in which there is an unspoken agreement not to discuss politics. Our country, once seen as a leader in human rights, is now on the Global Human Rights Watchlist. Civil liberties in our country are declining at an unprecedented rate. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly complex to have civil conversations about what is happening in our country.
I’m sure that some will be uncomfortable with the comparison of the rise of fascism in the 21st-century United States with the Nazi regime in 20th-century Germany. I believe, however, that now is the time to become as aware as possible and not shy away from uncomfortable conversations.
The stories that Bill told me haunt me too much for me to ignore what is going on in my community.
Over the years, Bill shared many stories with me about his life. He was a veteran of the United States Army, having served in Europe during World War II. I’m not sure of all of the details of his service, but at least part of the time, he was a journalist with the Stars and Stripes newspaper. In April of 1945, he was traveling with the 80th Infantry Division when they were sent to take control of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. Edward R. Murrow, the famous CBS radio reporter, was also part of the press detachment that arrived at the camp.
Bill had a lot of war stories, and he would occasionally tell them to the gang at the coffee shop. There were, however, some stories that I heard in other settings, often in the driveway of his home as he walked me out after I had paid a visit. As a young pastor, I was learning to listen to the stories that World War II veterans shared with me in private. At first, I didn’t understand why they were telling me the stories. Later, I learned that they were stories that they had not previously told to anyone. There was an air of secrecy that surrounded service during World War II. The famous slogan, “Loose lips sink ships,” served as a reminder that in wartime, information was a powerful weapon and that there were things that needed to be kept secret to preserve the ability to surprise and shock the enemy. Decades later, the things that they had witnessed continued to haunt the soldiers, and they sometimes sought opportunities to talk to someone about them. A young pastor was a reminder of the young pastors who had served as chaplains during their military service and had become trusted confidants to share the horrors they had witnessed.
The things that people told me in confidence as a pastor are not my stories to share, but part of Bill’s story is documented history that has been reported in other places. Part of the liberation of Buchenwald involved taking German civilian citizens on a tour of the camp. Because they had been subjected to Nazi propaganda, it was feared that the Germans would not take responsibility for the atrocities that occurred in the camps. Rather than tell them about what had happened in the camps, people were taken and shown crowded barracks, where as many as 1,200 people were housed in horse stables, five to a bunk. They were forced to smell the stink of sick prisoners and rotting bodies. Some were forced to participate in the burial of deceased camp inmates.
A couple of years before Bill told me some of his wartime stories, I had toured Dachau, one of the first concentration camps built by Nazi Germany. The camp was initially established to house Hitler’s political opponents. Later, it was expanded to house Jews, Romani, as well as Germans, whom the Nazi Party considered to be dissidents. By the end of World War II, the camp had become the center of a system of 100 sub-camps, located throughout southern Germany and Austria. By the time of our visit, the camp had been cleaned up. Most of the barracks had been torn down, with a few remaining as a museum of the brutal treatment and terror of the concentration camp system.
At Dachau, as was the case at Buchenwald, when liberation occurred, local citizens of the town near the camp claimed that they were unaware of what was happening inside the camp. At Dachau, there were 32,000 documented deaths and thousands more that remain undocumented. It is hard to understand how such horrors could occur in a community without some local knowledge of what was happening. The Nazi propaganda system was powerful and effective, however. We will never know if the camps were allowed to carry out their gruesome work next to civilian populations because of official propaganda and lies about their mission, or willful ignorance of the surrounding population. Probably there were elements of both.
My limited experiences and knowledge of Nazi concentration camps have left an imprint on me. It is one of the reasons I am fearful of the growing ICE detention centers in the community where I now live. We know very little of what goes on in those places. People are arrested and detained in the facilities without formal charges or judicial procedures. Their families are often unaware of the reasons for their detention and frequently don’t know the location of their loved ones. Agents seize people from job sites, schools, immigration offices, and other places.
More troubling to me is that I often encounter family and friends who are hesitant to talk about what is happening. “It makes me sick to think about it.” “Let’s talk about something else.” I have long conversations with people close to me, in which there is an unspoken agreement not to discuss politics. Our country, once seen as a leader in human rights, is now on the Global Human Rights Watchlist. Civil liberties in our country are declining at an unprecedented rate. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly complex to have civil conversations about what is happening in our country.
I’m sure that some will be uncomfortable with the comparison of the rise of fascism in the 21st-century United States with the Nazi regime in 20th-century Germany. I believe, however, that now is the time to become as aware as possible and not shy away from uncomfortable conversations.
The stories that Bill told me haunt me too much for me to ignore what is going on in my community.