THE PRESIDENT IN EUROPE : German Police Persuade Jews to Give Up Bergen-Belsen Vigil

After 10 hours of tense negotiations, West German police late Saturday persuaded a group of Jewish worshipers to leave the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp memorial before President Reagan’s trip there today.

Meanwhile, a second group of 40 relatives of Holocaust survivors, who were spending the night 25 miles away, asserted that the White House has prevented their presence at the memorial during the presidential stop.

Both groups, composed largely of Americans, have said they wanted to protest Reagan’s trip to a German military cemetery, also planned for today.

Police officials at the town of Celle, 15 miles east of the camp memorial, said they led the group of 18 Jews from the Bergen-Belsen grounds “as politely as possible.”

“We did it with as much sensitivity as we can,” said Wilfred Papst, Celle police spokesman.

Force Would Have Been Used

Papst said that the group, led by Rabbi Avi Weiss of New York City, was allowed into the memorial to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath on condition it leave at noon Saturday. If police had failed to convince the group to leave the camp memorial by early today, they would have been forced to carry members out.

While clearing an area before a presidential visit is considered routine and necessary for security purposes, the encounter between West German police and Jews at the camp memorial added more tension to Reagan’s controversial trip.

Jewish and gypsy organizations formally invited to Bergen-Belsen during Reagan’s stopover said Friday that they would not attend.

The Bergen-Belsen stop was added to Reagan’s itinerary in an unsuccessful attempt to quell the uproar that erupted after plans for his visit to the German war cemetery at Bitburg were announced.

Among the Bitburg cemetery’s 1,887 graves of World War II German war dead are 49 of soldiers from the Waffen SS, or combat arm, of Adolf Hitler’s SS elite force.

Menachem Z. Rosensaft, spokesman for the second group attempting to be present at the presidential visit to Bergen-Belsen, the International Network of Children of the Jewish Holocaust, said that it had decided against any confrontation with the police.

“We didn’t want to desecrate the memory of the dead or violate the sanctity of the graves,” he said. There are 12 mass graves in the forest clearing where the camp once stood.

Rosensaft, who was born in Bergen-Belsen, said that he had been informed by West German authorities that the group’s request to conduct a protest during Reagan’s 55-minute visit to the memorial had been blocked by the White House.

Reagan is scheduled to give a speech at the memorial before flying on to Bitburg, 60 miles southwest of Bonn.

“It was vetoed by the Bonn White House,’ Rosensaft said, referring to the President’s traveling staff.

Police spokesman Papst confirmed that the refusal for permission to carry out the protest “was made at the political level, from the American side.”

No one from the White House staff was available for comment late Saturday. However, in the past, U.S. officials have declined to comment on any matter related to presidential security.

Rosensaft said that his group, mostly children of Holocaust survivors, had wanted to hold “a peaceful protest, a non-destructive rally” at the site.

“We were ready to submit to any and all security requirements,” he said. “If the President did not want to be confronted, we would have stood 50, 100 or 200 yards away. We felt we had a right to be there. Our families died there.

“We want to protest the rehabilitation of the SS by President Reagan,” he added.

Calls Unanswered

Rosensaft said that he made four telephone calls to the U.S. Embassy in Bonn last week, seeking permission to stand at the gates to the memorial while Reagan was there, but that none of his calls was returned.

West German police officials said that the group will be permitted to conduct its protest, but only after Reagan has left the area.

Rosensaft said the protest “would be vocal,” consisting of a religious ceremony and a speech.

In Washington, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) accused the Reagan White House of pressuring the West German government into keeping Rosensaft’s group from demonstrating outside the Bergen-Belsen camp while the President is there.

“Their purpose . . . was to make a statement through nonviolent demonstration. They intended no embarrassment to the President. They were exercising a right guaranteed them in the First Amendment to the Constitution,” Moynihan said as he delivered his party’s response to Reagan’s weekly radio broadcast, which Saturday originated from Bonn.

Flowers for the Graves

Meanwhile, at Bitburg, about 2,000 police, hundreds of demonstrators and an anxious town awaited Reagan.

Townspeople placed flowers and wreaths on most of the graves, including those of the 49 Waffen SS soldiers.

“The cemetery is a sea of flowers,” said Lydie Hengen, a Bitburg resident who acts as a liaison between the nearby U.S. Air Force base and the town.

Two groups of demonstrators--the World Assn. of Jewish Students and an anti-nuclear group--have announced plans to protest during Reagan’s visit, but neither will be visible to Reagan, city officials said.

West German government spokesman Peter Boenisch said that three or four family members representing the small German anti-Nazi resistance have accepted invitations to be present at the ceremony. They were reportedly invited at the last minute by the West German government to ease opposition to the Bitburg visit.