Reagan’s Visit to Europe

The article by Ellen Goodman (Editorial Pages, April 9), concerning President Reagan’s remarks and “reasons” for not visiting the Dachau concentration camp, as part of the 40th anniversary of V-E Day, is right on the mark.

As a concentration camp survivor, who was a month short of 15 years of age, when liberated, on May 8, 1945, I can only wonder and ask: Why is our President so sensitive to German “feelings” by not paying his respects to the victims of the most calamitous bestiality committed against humanity? By a nation that deliberately planned these monstrous actions, as a matter of national policy , while the world watched indifferently?

What better way to commemorate victory over this bestial system, and the beginning of the “New Germany,” as well as an era to be based on peace, dignity and human rights, than for the President of the United States to pay his respects to both the victims of Nazi Germany, as well as to the American and Allied servicemen and women who gave their lives and limbs to remove and defeat it?

The generation of Germans too young during, or born since, that war, will surely not mind (and should not) resent commemoration of an era, for which it is their responsibility to ensure against its reoccurrence. The older generation, which was part of that era, with active or passive responsibility, do not deserve their “feelings” spared.

NATHAN POLLAK

Los Angeles