To wonder why the Brits are so obsessed with WW2?

[MrsSchadenfreude]

My Mum is 87. She was 12 when the war ended and went through it in London. She remembers being terrified and hungry and getting grief because her grandmother was German. Other elderly relatives don’t have lovely memories either, apart from relief when it was all over. So why do we glorify it all, at every opportunity? Why do we always look back instead of forward?

I didn’t have relatives on both sides - not that I know of. My great grandparents came to the UK from Germany as refugees

Yes I heard you the first time. Your grandmother was mixed German/British heritage and had a hard time because of the mixed heritage and that’s why you want us to all stop commemorating the dead of an enormous global tragedy.

It doesn’t work like that. My gran was Anglo-Italian and her family didn’t have a particularly fun time either, but that doesn’t give me the veto over the whole nation, facts and the academy.

What a strange attitude you have.

@ArriettyJones if you must quote or paraphrase me, please do so accurately.

I did. There’s no need to embellish - your OP it’s like a textbook exemplar of the anti-expert, anti-fact, tabloidesque, “I’ve got a tummy feeling” approach to history and collective cultural memory.

Dh is Danish and likes how we stop for 2 minutes silence and wear poppies. Denmark has liberation day 5th May, and the night before people light candles in their windows. Its quite touching if yourre in a city with flats and the whole building is lit up.

This year there has been a bit more attention because of the big 75. The red cross' white busses that drove to Germany to collect Danish prisoners. The resistance movement who were so astonishingly brave. The children who died when their school was bombed by the British.

When it was 50 years the street parties etc seemed like a history lesson. Now it feels less about that and more about something else but not quite sure what.

My family background is Italian too.

In my view, there should be a respectful commemoration of the end of WW2. All this loud partying is bullshit. And a lot of those out drinking in the street are just the type to not learn anything from the war anyway.

Free French troops played a role though.

I’m not disputing that. I’m disputing that the Americans played a larger role than the Brits. European countries, which were either neutral, occupied or fighting against the allies. They all have a very different narrative today than the one of 75 years ago. De Gaulle refused us entry to what is now the EU. My understanding is he was pissed off with us for coming to French shores on DDay to liberate them and not giving him a heads up.

There are plenty of learned, balanced, NUA aced and highly detailed academic accounts of various aspects of World War 2, as well as very accessible overview accounts of the entire conflict, and the aftermath l. I wish more people would read one or two instead of leaping to the two extremes.

I agree with this absolutely. But with the focus in mainstream media and social media on street parties the 'memorial holiday' definitely looked like a party/celebration (this changed slightly in terms of newspaper headlines once the Queen made her address). I mean English Heritage was encouraging people to sing along, learn the Lindy hop and bake tasty 1940s recipes...and yes they had links to other historical resources but that was their VE day bundle that kept popping up for me on my twitter.

In my view, there should be a respectful commemoration of the end of WW2. All this loud partying is bullshit. And a lot of those out drinking in the street are just the type to not learn anything from the war anyway.

I completely agree. Commemoration is the point, and hopefully some education.

The street boozers are (mostly) as bad as OP and OP is as bad as them. Two extremes.

I agree with this absolutely. But with the focus in mainstream media and social media on street parties the 'memorial holiday' definitely looked like a party/celebration (this changed slightly in terms of newspaper headlines once the Queen made her address). I mean English Heritage was encouraging people to sing along, learn the Lindy hop and bake tasty 1940s recipes.

That’s what you get when you combine the profit motive with the COVID effect (and a government desperate to propagandise the whole thing this year) . The focus is usually quite different.

My understanding is he was pissed off with us for coming to French shores on DDay to liberate them and not giving him a heads up

De Gaulle definitely knew about D Day.

That's pretty much it, isn't it?

Initially, all this changing the bank holiday, etc. was about moving the focus from Brexit and now it's about moving the focus away from the woeful shittery that is the government's handling of corona.

@ArriettyJones I haven’t said we shouldn’t commemorate. I said we shouldn’t glorify. Another poster said the 50th anniversary seemed like a history lesson, but this anniversary feels less about that and more about something else. I agree with this.

I agree with the op.
It just looked like an excuse for a puss up to me.
It's also hijacked by the far right.
I know not everyone is like this who celebrated but they unfortunately taint it for me.
When I see posts from certain people on FB I absolutely know the tone it will take. It is never along the lines of: let's all take a moment to reflect how lucky we are, to be kind to one another, regardless of the colour of their skin, race, ethneticity, religious beliefs , let's all celebrate our happiness.
It always has an undercurrent of racism smacked with let's get Brexit done, let's be proud to be British, let's make our nation great again.

The street boozers are (mostly) as bad as OP and OP is as bad as them. Two extremes.

Except OP didn't say we should forget everything about it. She agrees it should be remembered/commemorated , what she has an issue with is the glorification, and street parties and the boozers or in her words the "hooha".

I think it's easier to celebrate the Victory in Europe in May than looking at the actual end of WW2 - which was some 5 months later... for Britain anyway as the end of the war was also the beginning of the end of the Empire. Burma, Singapore and North Africa or the Pacific region are conveniently forgotten. Which makes me feel sad, as the soliders and natives suffered just as much and deserved to be remembered in their own right.

The reports I heard on tv/radio yesterday did all mention that this wasn’t technically the end of the war and that VJ Day is much later.

Evacuation was taught as being an adventure and rationing being a good thing when it actually miserable. This is not how evacuation and rationing is taught in schools now if that is what you're implying.
VE Day celebrations were to mark the relief that the war had ended in Europe. What else is there to say.

Most people in the UK can't imagine what it must have been like.
Most people in the world won't have been around to experience what occupation was like - both under the Germans and under the Japanese.

I honestly think most people have no idea of the horror and the fear of occupation.

They have no idea of what day to day life must have been like, both on the Home Front and in the battle areas.

I do feel uncomfortable with VE street parties nowadays and people who get dressed up, who have all their WW2 vehicles, their costumes etc. It's like trying to recreate something that isn't theirs to recreate.

In 75 years, will people be having pandemic parties to remember what happened? Will they be recreating social distance parties, with music of the time and dressing up in the fashion of the 2020s?

Or will they be remembering what happened and hoping that society has learned from the mistakes that took place, as well as the good things that came out of this?

I’m not sure - the link is with me because my parents were kids/teen during the war and remembered it distinctly (living in target areas). My grandparents were alive when I was little and I would hear snippets, memories (when the thought I wasn’t listening). I found out a lot more after he died. My geography teacher had a friend in a POW camp - she would tell us about him.

So it was very much ‘alive’ for me. I try to keep it alive for DS - half of his family were not touched by it due to geography (other wars and revolutions for them).

ArriettyJones I haven’t said we shouldn’t commemorate. I said we shouldn’t glorify. Another poster said the 50th anniversary seemed like a history lesson, but this anniversary feels less about that and more about something else. I agree with this.

What rot. You started off by calling the whole country “obsessed” (in the title) said some general things about your gran’s specific experience and finished off by saying ”So why do we glorify it all, at every opportunity? Why do we always look back instead of forward?”

That’s not supportive of national commemoration.

Look at the uninformed posters who have flocked to your support. Basic historical errors all over the thread.

Why do you need to be so divisive and anti-fact, if you’re supposedly opposed to the jingoistic crowd?

Surely the right approach should be

• my parents taught me to venerate VE day
• my parents did not venerate VE day as they were raised in the 60s
• hence I did not think much of it in my childhood
• now I realise the great sacrifice and teach my children about that
• we commemorate and respect all of that but can we live our lives around it? I do not know

Clearly most of the mums netters are over 60 years old so (if I get a response) I only expect push back.

Because had the outcome been different then the world in which we now live and the lifestyle we have would be very different.

I'm in full agreement with you, OP. It's become increasingly apparent in recent years with the rigorous policing of those who do or don't wear the once beautiful, benign but sad symbol of the poppy. It's now turned into a politicized witch-hunt of those who, for reasons that are personal to themselves, choose not to wear it. I'm not buying into that for one moment, and my dear old Grandad would have been appalled.

Our enemy nations are now friends and allies. Former allies, on the other hand, now exist in an extremely fraught relationship with the west. The real enemy - Nazism and the sentiments that underpin it - is unfortunately still far too alive and well to make any celebration of its defeat entirely comfortable.

Something about it rings hollow to my ears. Others can of course celebrate as they see fit. I don't want to. Where problems arise is the lambasting of people exercising that freeom - and yes this does happen on 11/11 every single year - precisely the freedom so many in that generation fought and died to uphold.

YANBU.

@pennylane if the UK hadn't invaded half of he world, the world would look very different too.

That is why I hate this bullshit of : look how great we are, we saved the world in ww2.

What about all the times we invaded and alaughtered innocent people?

I have travelled and seen the damage that the Uk has done to many parts of the world

The street boozers are (mostly) as bad as OP.

The OP is not 'bad'. She has a view which differs from yours. And you want to talk about extremes?

The OP is not 'bad'. She has a view which differs from yours. And you want to talk about extremes?

“As bad as” is an expression. I’m talking about being “as bad” in terms of sloppy thinking, anti-expert stance and over reaction. Not crimes against humanity.