The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Europe holds low-key V-E Day commemorations due to virus
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 canceled 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 World War II veterans, many living in nursing homes under virus lockdowns, it has been a difficult time.
Britain
Queen Elizabeth II 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.
“The wartime generation knew that the best way to honour those who didn’t come back from the war, was to ensure that it didn’t happen again,“she said from Windsor Castle’s white drawing room.
“The greatest tribute to their sacrifice is that countries who were once sworn enemies are now friends, working side by side for the peace, health and prosperity of us all.”
Across the U.K., people got into the spirit of V-E Day, designated a public holiday this year. 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. The “Victory in Europe” speech by Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was broadcast on television. France
Victory Day has been a traditional holiday in France, but it was clearly far more somber 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-Elysees Avenue in Paris.
Macron urged people to display flags on their balconies to honor 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.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier recalled how at the end of the war “the Germans were really alone” and “morally ruined.“
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 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.