Virus forces low-key V-E Day events
Europe marks 75th anniversary of war’s end
Europe was marking the 75th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany to Allied forces in low-key fashion Friday because of coronavirus lockdown restrictions across the continent.
The big celebrations planned were either cancelled or dramatically scaled back, and people across Europe were asked to mark the moment in private.
There were no mass gatherings, no hugging or kissing, but the day of liberation was commemorated from
Belfast to Berlin. For the few surviving Second World War veterans, many living in nursing homes under virus lockdowns, it has been a particularly difficult time.
BRITAIN
Across the U.K., people got into the spirit of V-E Day, designated this year as a public holiday. Many dressed up in 1940s attire, while bunting was displayed outside homes, including at 10 Downing Street in London that houses the prime minister’s office. People were encouraged to go out onto their doorsteps to sing Vera Lynn’s iconic wartime anthem, “We’ll Meet Again” — which has added resonance now as families and friends are separated by coronavirus lockdowns.
People gathered in a socially distanced way on the hills of London to marvel at the Royal Air Force’s Red Arrows. The nine planes flew in formation above the River Thames and let loose their red, white and blue smoke to mark the colours of the Union Jack.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who lit a candle Thursday by the grave of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey in remembrance of those who gave their lives, wrote to veterans, describing them as “the greatest generation of Britons who ever lived.”
Prince Charles and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, led the country in a two-minute silence at the war memorial on the grounds of Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Charles laid a wreath of poppies on behalf of the nation. At the U.K.’s main memorial on Whitehall in central London, traffic ground to a halt as people observed the silence.
The “Victory in Europe” speech by Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was broadcast on television. Queen Elizabeth II, at 94 a World War II veteran herself, will speak to the nation at 9 p.m., the exact time that her father, King George VI, addressed Britons 75 years ago.
One sad moment was the death of Flight Lt. Terry Clark, one of the last surviving veterans of the Battle of Britain, at the age of 101. The Ministry of Defence said Clark joined the RAF in 1938, initially flying as an air gunner before becoming a radio observer on Beaufighters. Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, Chief of the Air Staff, said it was “particularly poignant” news on this of all days. “He served our country with heroic distinction,” he said.
FRANCE
Unlike Britain, Victory Day is a traditional public holiday in France, but it was clearly far more sombre this year with the country under a strict coronavirus lockdown. There were no flybys, no parades.
Small ceremonies were allowed at local memorials as the government granted exceptions to restrictions following requests from mayors and veterans.
President Emmanuel Macron led a small ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. He laid a wreath and relit the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, atop a deserted Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris.
Macron was accompanied by former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, each carefully observing social distancing. Macron used a hand sanitizer after signing the official register.
Macron also laid a wreath at the statue of one of his predecessors, Charles de Gaulle, the general revered for leading the French Resistance from London after France had fallen in 1940.
Macron urged people to display flags on their balconies to honour the resistance fighters and the Free France forces.
GERMANY
Although V-E Day is a very different occasion in Germany, it’s considered a day of liberation, too.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top officials laid wreaths at the memorial to victims of war and violence in Berlin, standing in silence as a trumpet played on an empty Unter den Linden boulevard.
“The corona pandemic is forcing us to commemorate alone,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. He recalled that, on May 8, 1945, “the Germans were really alone” and “morally ruined.”
“We had made an enemy of the whole world,” he said in a nationally televised address, adding that 75 years later “we are not alone.”
Steinmeier underlined Germans’ responsibility to “think, feel and act as Europeans” in this time of crisis and to confront intolerance whenever it emerges.
“We Germans can say today that the day of liberation is a day of gratitude,” Steinmeier said. “Today, we must liberate ourselves — from the temptation of a new nationalism; from fascination with the authoritarian; from distrust, isolation and enmity between nations; from hatred and agitation, from xenophobia and contempt for democracy.”
“If we don’t keep Europe together, in and after this pandemic, we will prove not to be worthy of May 8,” he said.
Merkel spoke with Macron, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone to mark the moment. Russia, which was then part of the Soviet Union, saw tens of millions of casualties during the war. It marks V-E Day on Saturday.
POLAND
In Poland, V-E Day elicits mixed emotions as the country, which suffered massively during the war, was subsequently subjugated by the Soviet Union and remained part of the communist bloc until 1989.
At a wreath-laying commemoration at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw, President Andrzej Duda described V-E Day as a “bittersweet anniversary.” Six million of Poland’s 35 million people were killed, half of whom were Jewish.
Duda lamented the fact that thousands of Polish troops who had fought alongside Allied forces weren’t allowed to march in the 1946 Victory Parade in London for fear of straining British relations with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
The Second World War began on Sept. 1, 1939, when Adolf Hitler’s Nazi forces invaded Poland.
Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.