By Sunder Katwala, CapX
1945 has a strong claim to be the most important year in history. In the history books, it feels like a year when everything happened all at once.
1945 began with the liberation of Auschwitz and the revelation of unimaginable horrors. It was the year of the race to Berlin between armies from both the west and the east – culminating in the suicide of Adolf Hitler, with news of the execution of Mussolini outside Rome too. Cue joyous celebrations of Victory Day – in Europe, at least – though without yet knowing if the war in the Pacific would last months or years. Yet 1945 would also become the year of the atom bomb, dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki – foreshadowing Cold War decades lived in fear of nuclear Armageddon. And it was the year of Potsdam and Yalta, when the maps of continents were redrawn, and the promise of freedom deferred for four decades for half of Europe. 1945 was the year of the British election landslide which gave Churchill his marching orders, inviting a Labour government to make a better job of winning the peace than last time. It was the year the Nuremberg trials began. A form of victor’s justice, perhaps, but conveying a belief in justice and international order, marked too by the founding of the United Nations before Christmas.
To be marking the 80th anniversary of VE Day this week conveys why 1945 feels distant to most of us today. When the war was won, 95% of us were yet to be born. Most of those who are alive today and were born before VE Day were still under five when the war ended. So most of us inherited the stories of 1945 through school textbooks and television documentaries. Yet this week of commemoration has reminded us – perhaps for the last time with major ceremonies – that the events that most of us know from grainy black and white photographs or newsreel footage are still living memories for a dwindling few.
Read also – from Religion Media Centre:
80th anniversary VE day marked in churches and cathedrals
Cathedrals and churches across Britain are marking the 80th anniversary of VE day today with special services. The Church of England has produced an order of service template with readings, prayers and traditional hymns. It includes a pledge of commitment to “support those working for the relief of the needy and for the peace and welfare of the nations”. The televised service attended by the royal family, comes from Westminster Abbey at 12 noon today to honour and pay tribute to the wartime generation. At 6.30pm, cathedrals and churches in Britain and abroad, will ring bells in united celebration, including at Coventry cathedral, a centre for reconciliation and peace. Angela Youngman reports here on how the cathedral uses art to heal the wounds of history and work for peace.