No Tribute

To the Editors of The Crimson:

We are outraged and appalled by President Reagan's planned visit this Sunday, May 5, to the military cemetery in Bitburg. West Germany containing the graves of 49 Nazi SS soldiers. The President has said this visit will be a celebration of American German "reconciliation." Though our country is a friend and ally of West Germany--the spiritual heir to those Germans who resisted Nazism-Mr. Reagan has chosen to honor instead the graves of Germans who perpetrated the evil of Nazism Certainly there are more praiseworthy people- Germans who fought for freedom and against hatred to whom we might have paid homage.

In his attempts to justify what was most likely an error in his staff's planning, the President has made statements we find very troubling. We are particularly disturbed by his remark that the Nazis buried at Bitburg "were victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps." Is it necessary to overlook the guilt of fascist Germans of 1945 in order to achieve reconciliation with the democratic Germans of 1985?

President Reagan's visit is seen by many people--including large portions of the West German population--as an act of forgiveness to Germans who fought under Hitler. A member of the West German Parliament has said that "God's mercy also extends to the buried SS soldiers." God's mercy, perhaps, but not America's tribute Only God and the victims can give the Nazi butchers their ultimate forgiveness. The President offers German consciences a flawed pardon at the expense of historical understandings; this is an unacceptable tradeoff. By his words and planned visit. President Reagan has blurred the distinction between the murderers and their victims--a disservice to the past and future.

Americans seem helpless to prevent their President from laying a wreath, this Sunday, upon the graves of Nazi SS soldiers. They can, however, bear witness to history by standing with the victims of the SS Wherever the Nazis ruled in Europe, they decreed that all Jewish people wear a yellow armband or Star of David upon their clothing Intended as a mark of shame, it was transformed into a symbol of courage and solidarity by the Gentiles who wore it also We be have an appropriate form of commemoration for all the victims, and repudiation of Mr. Reagan's act, would be for all people--Jewish and Gentile--to wear a yellow armband this Sunday. "The issue here is not politics," said Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, "but good and evil, And we must never confuse them."

Yellow armbands will be available in the Houses and Union at Sunday brunch. The Coordinating Council of Hillel   Patrick M. Bennet '85, Former Co-   President. Catholic Students Association   Thomas Ferrick. Humanist Chaplain,   Harvard Radcliffe   The Reverend David I., Fountain, Assistant   Minister, Memorial Church   Rabbi Ben-Zion Gold, Hillel Director   Thomas F. Rice '85, President, H-R   Christian Fellowship