Europe holds low-key VE-Day commemoration
No kissing or crowds as people mark anniversary of continent’s liberation
LONDON—Europe marked 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. There were no mass gatherings, no hugging or kissing, but the day of liberation was emotionally charged 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
The Queen brought the U.K.’s commemorations to an end with a televised broadcast to the nation at the exact time her father, King George VI, addressed the country in 1945.
The Queen, 94, remembered the sacrifices and the “joyous celebrations” that followed the end of fighting in Europe, and paid tribute to today’s generation combating the coronavirus pandemic.
Across the U.K., people got into the spirit of VE-Day, designated a public holiday this year. Many dressed up in 1940s attire, while bunting was displayed outside homes.
The “Victory in Europe” speech by Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was broadcast on television.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote to veterans, describing them as “the greatest generation of Britons who ever lived,” while 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.
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.
France
Victory Day has been a traditional holiday in France, but it was clearly far more sombre this year given the lockdown.
Small ceremonies were allowed at local memorials as exceptions to restrictions were granted 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-Élysées Avenue in Paris.
Macron was accompanied by former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, each carefully observing socialdistancing rules.
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 VE-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. President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in a nationally televised address, recalled how at the end of the war “the Germans were really alone” and “morally ruined.”
Steinmeier underlined Germans’ responsibility to “think, feel and act as Europeans” in this time of crisis and to confront intolerance whenever it emerges.
Merkel spoke with Johnson, 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 VE-Day on Saturday.
Poland
In Poland, VE-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 VE-Day as a “bittersweet anniversary.” Six million of Poland’s 35 million people were killed, half of whom were Jewish.