Dachau, 1999

Friday, January 27 is Holocaust Rememberance Day.  In 1999, I was part of the MSSC Chamber Choir's tour of Austria, Hungary, and Germany.  It was an amazing expecience musically, historically, and spiritually.  When I returned home, I knew that I didn't want to forget one of the most powerful moments in my life, which happened in the Dachau Concentration Camp Musem and Compound.  So I wrote the following essay, which later appeared in the July 4th, 1999 edition of the Joplin Globe.

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The bus was much louder than I had expected. Most of the forty-eight member group was busy laughing, playing games, or singing silly songs. But I sat there quietly, lost in reflection, contemplation, introspection, sorrow, and shame. It had been a wonderful couple of weeks for our group, the Missouri Southern State College Chamber Choir. We had performed in Vienna, Budapest, Grasz, Salzburg, and Innsbruck to warm, welcoming audiences. So this cold, cruel end was quite a change, a real shock to our system. But this really was the last stop on our wonderful tour, Dachau.

Knowing my emotional nature, I had been dreading this stop for days. So how was it that the bus was still filled with laughter? Did no one else feel the blackness and bleakness of thousands of deaths descending on them like a thick fog? Did no one else choke on the evil and the hatred as though it were cigarette smoke? We were still five or ten miles from the concentration camp when the emotion began to overtake me. I was wearing mirrored sunglasses, so I know that no one saw as my eyes began to fill up with tears. But from behind me came a voice, serious and somber amidst the carefree laughter of a college tour bus. That voice said one phrase: "Imagine yourself on a train, Greg."

I shook my head emphatically, but it was no use. I was still transported there, fifty years earlier, to a Nazi hell. I could hold back no longer. The tears began to stream down my cheeks as I struggled not to sob. My face, contorted, my cheeks, wet with the trail of those tears, I lost the composure that I'd been battling to keep. At that moment, my dear friend, Kelley, happened to ask me a question; I don't recall the question. But she turned and saw my face, she saw my breaking heart. She took me by the arm, and said, "It's OK." I remember feeling embarrassed to be seen so emotionally naked; but I also remember a feeling of peace coming over me. Maybe it was OK. Thank God for friends.

In a couple of moments, I had pulled myself together, and we began to near Dachau. We parked the bus in a lot that appeared quite ordinary. By this time, the laughter had died down, maybe it was real to all of us now. We filed off the bus and down a sidewalk, much like any other sidewalk. The trees were thick, as was the shrubbery, so green with life. Then we rounded the corner to the camp gate.

Off to the left was a large, greyish-white, U-shaped building. This remains as the museum. Off to the right were the barracks, beyond the barracks--the crematorium. All around us was gravel, hard, desolate, and unfeeling. The only color to be seen was that greyish-white of the buildings and the gravel. In front of the museum was a long wall, a memorial standing about six feet high, two feet wide, and maybe fifty feet long. On one end of the wall was a large, rather generic plaque stating what the wall commemorates. At the far end, the end nearest the museum, the wall sloped gently down to the gravelly ground. As I read the plaque on the end of the wall, my eyes filled with tears once again. I slowly rounded the wall and faced its front. There, in five different languages, was the phrase: "Never Again."

I stared at those words for several seconds, until I could read them no more. "Never Again?" How could this have happened in the first place? We are supposed to be a civilization. How could so much hatred take control of so many people and lead them to so much murder, cruelty, and genocide? I am a man. Was Hitler a man? Was he a monster, or a devil? And how could so many follow his horrible lead? The tears flowed freely now, as I bit my bottom lip to keep from blubbering. I had to get away; it seemed that the crowd was bearing down on me. I needed to be alone with my thoughts and my sorrow.

So I started across the complex, alone with my grief. There in the center stood a statue. At first glance, it looked like a random, black, wirey mess. But as I looked more closely, I could see the tangling of human bodies. I couldn't bear to look at it at all. I wandered alone through the camp, speaking only a solemn word or two to my classmates as we passed one another.

Inside the museum, they showed a documentary lasting about thirty minutes about the war in general, and Dachau in particular. As we waited in line to enter the theater, we were crammed tightly into a small room. I could not help but wonder if the prisoners had been crammed in a similar fashion into that room fifty years before. The documentary was cold and historical with its focus on facts and figures rather than the obviously emotional nature of the story. I doubt that I could have endured it otherwise.

After leaving the makeshift theater, I went to the museum. My friend, Kelley was looking through it at the same time, so we stayed, for the most part, together. Again, thank God for friends. There were hundreds of photographs and newspaper articles detailing the rise of Hitler to power, then, of the horrors of him and his regime. There were pictures of bodies so thin they might just as well have been skeletons. There were pictures of "medical" experiments too gruesome for me to recount. But it was the faces; it was the faces that tore your soul in two. These were real people, with real families, real emotions, and real souls. These were human beings, not cattle. These were, in truth, my brothers.

Overcome with emotion yet again, I walked over to a window for some air. I wanted to vomit. The windows were large, maybe six feet by three feet or so. As I approached the window, I saw the memorial wall outside; the window was right next to the sloped end of the wall. There, I saw two small children, obviously brother and sister, the brother being about four years old, and the sister two or three years old. These two carefree children were climbing and playing on this wall. I couldn't believe it. There, in that fortress of evil and murder, in the midst of thousands of shrieking martyred ghosts, were two children, innocent, clean, and pure, playing on the wall. In the midst of this anguish, swallowed up in a cloud of hopeless darkness, shone the light of two innocent souls--two stars of hope for tomorrow--two rays of sunshine rescuing me from today. And I thought of the words to an old Rich Mullins song:

     "And I know that the gates of Hell,
     Are not as proned to prevail,
     As I thought that they were,
     As I once thought they were proned to prevail.
     And I know that the gates of Hell,
     They have been destined to fail.
     And I see Satan impaled on the Sword of the Word.
     On the Sword of the Word."

And, suddenly, I knew. Evil will not win out. Darkness has not and will not prevail. As long as nations will fight against tyranny; as long as everyday people will fight against hatred and racism; as long as the Father sits on His Heavenly Throne; as long as we have the Son of God who died that we might have Life..........and as long as two little babes play innocently on the wall at Dachau, darkness cannot, and will not, prevail.

greg fisher, 1999

To Gamble, or Not To Gamble

Every few years, come election time, the same issue keeps coming back around.  And, man, are we ever divided on this issue?  The issue is Riverboat Gambling.  The feelings run deep on both sides of the issue, like the old White River in flood stage.  On the one hand, there is the decades old tradition of Family Entertainment in the Branson area.  On the other hand, is the prospect of new business, new markets from which to draw tourists, new tax revenue streams, new jobs, and the potential revival of a town left adrift in the remains of a once bustling tourist economy of its own:  Rockaway Beach.  Let me say right here and now that I am against gambling, in general, and in the Branson area in particular.  That said……….

 

The story of Rockaway Beach, Missouri is a sad one.  In the 1930's, 40's, 50’s and even 60’s it was the tourism capital of the Ozarks, not Branson.  But with the construction of Table Rock Dam on the old White River in the late 1950’s, Lake Taneycomo at Rockaway Beach changed from a warm water, swimmer/skier haven of a lake to a cold water, trout fishing lake.  The swimmers & skiers relocated to the bigger, and warmer, Table Rock Lake, leaving Rockaway Beach, MO with the tourism leftovers.  The town, or what’s left of it, has been trying to regain their tourism edge ever since, with less effect than they’d like.  That’s why they have pursued Riverboat Gambling, the approval of which requires a statewide vote.  And each time it’s been on the ballot, it’s been voted down.

Now, rumor has it that the last time it failed was because of all the “No” votes coming out of St. Louis and Kansas City, each of which already have Riverboat Gambling.  It doesn’t take a genius to see why it would benefit their economies to keep that business exclusively to themselves, rather than to allow the Branson/Rockaway Beach area to steal a piece of that particular pie.  As I said earlier, I am against allowing gambling in the Branson/Rockaway Beach area.  But I have serious questions about Missouri allowing Kansas City or St. Louis to reap the economic benefit of Riverboat Casinos, while preventing Rockaway Beach, Missouri, from attempting to reap those same benefits.  There’s definitely something inequitable about that.  And that doesn’t sit well with me.  How can the rules of commerce in two parts of Missouri, Kansas City and St. Louis, not apply equally to all parts of Missouri?  Equal protection?  Not exactly.  Sounds more like discrimination to a layman, like myself.

Many residents of Taney County are staunchly opposed to allowing Riverboat Gambling in this area.  And many among those opposed are the most powerful people in this area, with big budgets to promote Branson’s continued family only image.  Contrary to the way my earlier comments may read, I am one of those opposed to gambling.  Branson is a wonderful place for “Family Entertainment.”  When a family comes to Branson, they needn’t worry about whether some of the shows are suitable for their kids.  They are.  They all are.  And that is one of the truly special things about the Branson area.  It’s wholesome.  It’s safe.  It’s relatively free from the seedy underbelly of crime that some say will accompany the gambling and the gamblers.  Family entertainment is Branson’s brand.  And I’m all for that, and for all that goes with it.  I’m just not sure how far that opinion should go toward limiting someone else’s enterprise.  It is a question to ponder.