"Reagan was soon to embark upon a trip to West Germany, and planned to visit the Bitburg cemetery in which were buried German soldiers who had fought Allied troops during World War II. This was meant as an act of conciliation between the USA and Germany, an effort to put to rest lingering feelings of ill will over World War II. The plan misfired, however, when it was discovered that soldiers of Hitler's Waffen SS were also among the dead at Bitburg. Upon the discovery President Reagan faced a choice – offend Chancellor Kohl and the German people by refusing to visit the cemetery, or risk seeming insensitive to the victims of the notorious SS. In his address, Wiesel calmly but urgently asks Reagan to remember the victims of the Holocaust and to honour their memory by refusing to visit Bitburg. Reagan eventually did visit the cemetery, but deliberately turned his back when he neared the SS graves."

The History Channel