On May 5, 1985 -- momentous visits in Europe by then-President Ronald W. Reagan

(as posted at Politico dot-com: This Date in History):


On this day (5/5/85) in 1985, President Ronald Reagan visited the German war cemetery in Bitburg. Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor, had suggested the trip to the cemetery, where some 2,000 German soldiers lie buried, to mark the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe.
Most Jewish leaders urged Reagan to forgo the visit, especially after it became known that the cemetery also housed the graves of 49 Nazi storm troopers. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, pleaded with Reagan to drop Bitburg from his schedule during a ceremony in the White House East Room marking Jewish Heritage Week. Political leaders in Britain, Belgium, Holland and even West Germany criticized the Bitburg decision.
To soften this criticism, Reagan made an unscheduled visit that morning to Bergen-Belsen, a concentration camp where some 50,000 victims of Nazi persecution, mostly Jews, wereburied in mass graves. In his remarks there, Reagan declared that we must not forget what happened and we must pledge “never again,” adding: “Here they lie. Never to hope. Never to pray. Never to love. Never to heal. Never to laugh. Never to cry.”
At the cemetery, the president spoke briefly and laid a wreath. He was accompanied by Gen. Matthew Ridgway — at 91, the last surviving top military leader from World War II.
First lady Nancy Reagan had counseled her husband against the visit, arguing that it “would be offensive to Jews” and would make him look “insensitive to those who had died in the Holocaust.” But Reagan subsequently wrote: “I have never regretted not canceling the trip to Bitburg. In the end, I believe my visit to the cemetery … helped strengthen our European alliance and heal once and for all many of the lingering wounds of war.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54287.html#ixzz1LfzJeBrH