LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 October Rare Books & Manuscripts #675  / 

30521

Ronald Reagan Bergen-Belsen Speech Signed

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:400.00 USD Estimated At:800.00 - 1,200.00 USD
Ronald Reagan Bergen-Belsen Speech Signed
<B>Ronald Reagan Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp Speech Signed</B></I> “<I>This is for you Ronald Reagan,</B></I>” three pages, 8.5” x 12.75”, separate sheets. The third page only has the last two words of Reagan's speech, “<I>Never agin</B></I> (sic).” A fourth page, 8.5” x 10.75”, has been added quoting from favorable German news stories about the President's speech. Headed “<I>The White House/Office of the Press Secretary/(Bitburg Air Base, Federal Republic of Germany)/For Immediate Release May 5, 1985/Remarks of the President/at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp/Federal Republic of Germany/12:10 P.M.</B></I>” Fifty thousand victims of the Nazis are buried in mass graves under mounds of heather at Bergen-Belsen. After laying a wreath at a camp memorial, President Reagan said, in part, “<I>Here lie people -- Jews -- whose death was inflicted for no reason other than their very existence. Their pain was borne only because of who they were and because of the God in their prayers. Alongside them lay many Christians -- Catholics and Protestants…For year after year, until that man and his evil were destroyed, hell yawned forth its awful contents. People were brought here for no other purpose but to suffer and die -- to go unfed when hungry, uncared for when sick, tortured when the whim struck, and left to have misery consume them when all there was around them was misery. What we've felt and are expressing with words cannot convey the suffering that they endured. That is why history will forever brand what happened as the Holocaust...We learn from the Talmud that: 'It was only through suffering that the children of Israel obtained three priceless and coveted gifts: The Torah, the Land of Israel, and the World to Come.' Yes, out of this sickness -- as crushing and cruel as it was -- there was hope for the world as well as for the world to come. Out of the ashes -- hope, and from all the pain - promise…Nothing illustrates this better than the story of a young girl who died here at Bergen-Belsen. For more than 2 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…Somewhere here lies Anne Frank. Everywhere here are memories -- pulling us, touching us, making us understand that they can never be erased. Such memories take us where God intended His children to go -- toward learning, toward healing, and, above all, toward redemption…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 agin</B></I> (sic).” Following his remarks, the President and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl traveled to Bitburg where President Reagan presided over a wreath-laying at the base of a brick cemetery tower looming over the graves of nearly 2,000 German soldiers, including 49 SS troops. Four sheets stapled together in upper left. Tiny spot beneath staple on first page. Fine condition.<BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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