VE Day 80 – why we should remember
VE Day 80 – why we should remember.
8th May 2025 – the 80th anniversary of VE day. Victory in Europe. The official end of the Second World War in Europe. The end of the most devasting war in human history. The end of six years of death, chaos, hatred, genocide, economic turmoil, loss, fear and the evil of human against his (or her) fellows. Between 70-80 MILLION people died, and many more were wounded, sometimes permanently, or displaced. 80 MILLION!!!!!
There have been several headlines stating 4 in 10 Brits don’t understand what VE day signifies. I was shocked, and saddened by this. My parents had both served in the military, and my father was wounded in action and lost most of the sight in one eye. I was brought up to understand what had happened during WWII, and the history of Europe in the 20th century. My grandparents took in a Jewish refugee, my best friend was the decendent of an Eastern European woman of Jewish heritage who that had fled the pogroms as a child, and whose family had died in the gas camps.
There were reminders of the war, it’s cost and what the liberation of Europe meant. Everywhere. From the buildings destroyed in the blitz, to families whose grandparents or parents hadn’t come home, or, worse, been exterminated by a vicious regime. I’d be surprised if there’s not a family in Western Europe who had not been touched in some way by the second world war.
17 million people were killed by the Nazi regime – Jews, gay people, disabled, socialists, Jehovah Witnesses, Romany/Gypsy, Soviet prisoners, Polish, ‘traitors’, and various other groups to some degree. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Nazi_Germany
Six years of bloody war and unprecedented evil had come to an end. That is something to celebrate. And remember, to give thanks for liberty and remember those who were murdered, or fell in war.
But, I hear you say that was 80 years ago…Not my problem, not my generation….
Yep. It was 80 years ago – in living memory but only just. And it is your problem. It’s everyone’s problem. If people don’t learn, and speak out then it happens, again and again.
It can, and does continue. Since 1945 possibly over 50 million people have been killed in genocides around the world – in every part of the globe. Humans are, apparently, extremely good at being shitty to one another.
As the news becomes more troubling by the day and human rights are eroded left, right and centre and right wing politics is growing keep in mind that tyranny walks where hatred and division lead.
We should remember VE day – because it reminds us of the darkness that overran a continent, a world is not extinguished, merely dampened, and could and may well arise.
Do not be complacent. Do not forget what has happened, and continues to happen, and lurks, awaiting the chance to rise.
Remember. Learn. Understand.
It might be your rights that are removed, your family that are hounded, removed, murdered. It could be you. Or me.
https://www.ajourneyintotheholocaust.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Genocides_Chart_9-2-2014.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/genocide-since-1945-never-again-a-338612.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
