Rare photocopied official White House press release of Reagan’s speech entitled “Remarks of the President at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp,” three pages, 8.5 x 14, delivered on May 5, 1985, signed at the top in blue felt tip, “Thought you might like to see this, Ronald Reagan.” Reagan’s speech, in part: “This painful walk into the past has done much more than remind us of the war that consumed the European Continent. What we have seen makes unforgettably clear that no one of the rest of us can fully understand the enormity of the feelings carried by the victims of these camps. The survivors carry a memory beyond anything that we can comprehend. The awful evil started by one man, an evil that victimized all the world with its destruction, was uniquely destructive of the millions forced into the grim abyss of these camps…Nothing illustrates this better than the story of a young girl who died here at Bergen-Belsen. For more than two years Anne Frank and her family had hidden from the Nazis in a confined annex in Holland where she kept a remarkably profound diary. Betrayed by an informant, Anne and her family were sent by freight car first to Auschwitz and finally here to Bergen-Belsen…this sparkling young life ended here at Bergen-Belsen. Somewhere here lies Anne Frank…We're all witnesses; we share the glistening hope that rests in every human soul. Hope leads us, if we're prepared to trust it, toward what our President Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. And then, rising above all this cruelty, out of this tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the anguish, the pain and the suffering for all time, we can and must pledge: Never again.” Also includes one page of quoted comments by the German press. In fine condition, with staple holes to upper left. This speech was given during Reagan's controversial trip to Germany in March 1985, where he visited both the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and Bitburg war cemetery, where German soldiers had been buried, in an effort to honor all victims of World War II. He had hoped the tour would acknowledge America's strong relationship with Germany since the end of the war, but he later realized that it has instead 'opened old wounds.' Despite the public fallout from the trip as a whole, Reagan's speech given at Bergen-Belsen was an eloquent, moving tribute to those who suffered the great travesties of World War II. A historically significant and rare signed piece. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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