Word: bitburg
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...President listened in tight-lipped concentration as the thin, wispy-haired writer graciously accepted his medal, handed it to his son Elisha, 12, and then turned to the sensitive topic everyone present had awaited: Reagan's intention to visit a West German cemetery at Bitburg, where 47 of the Third Reich's notorious Waffen SS troops, as well as some 2,000 regular German soldiers, lie buried. As criticism mounted, Reagan had belatedly added a concentration camp to his itinerary next month in West Germany, where he will help Chancellor Helmut Kohl observe the 40th anniversary of the ending...
...reconciliation has been set in motion between us. We were always on the side of justice, always on the side of memory, against the SS and against what they represent." He said that he was convinced that "you were not aware of the presence of SS graves in the Bitburg cemetery . . . But now we all are aware. May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find another way, another site. That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims...
...President, looking relieved that the painful moment had passed, applauded. He did not respond to Wiesel's plea not to lay a wreath at Bitburg. Moments before, Reagan had eloquently expressed his view that Americans have pledged more than "Never again"; they have also pledged "Never forget." Yet in indirect reference to the cemetery visit that has embroiled his presidency in its most emotional controversy, he also declared, "There is a spirit of reconciliation between the peoples of the Allied nations and the people of Germany and between the soldiers who fought each other on the battlefields of Europe. That...
...list of Wiesel's acquaintances is impressive--United States presidents and Israeli prime ministers, other Nobel laureates, Francois Mitterrand, Mikhail S. Gorbachev and many others. Wiesel does not attempt to recount the history of the past 30 years, but he calls on it. He provides his reactions to the Bitburg Affair and to events in the former Yugoslavia. He assumes knowledge of current history that we should all share. I doubt we all do. He implicitly challenges us to be informed--to contribute to the maintenance of social memory...
...from event to event. He pulls us, splashing, along the surface of the years. But he soon slows and we sink deeper--into his thoughts about living in the Diaspora, a tension that will return again and again. He delves into long discussions of Reagan's actions in the Bitburg Affair and of French president Francois Mitterrand. His thoughts are fascinating. I have said that Wiesel's reflections are not emotionally intimate. This does not make them less emotionally powerful. His words are personal, intellectual. Indirectly yet still consciously, they call upon a deep reservoir of personal and Jewish experience...