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?

It’s the last time our society was important, hard working, respectable, disciplined, self sacrificing and decent

I hate this myth. People looted their neighbours during air raids, shelters were vandalised by teenagers, and the black market was organised crime (not a humorous cad in some film).

Remember the war and the sacrifices but I wish people would stop glorifying society at the time as full of selfless people whose spirit we should aspire to emulate. People were people just as they are now, some were good, some were selfless and carried out incredible acts of generosity or bravery, some were bad, and some muddled through as best they could.

Whichever side you were on, the war ending is something to be celebrated I think?

It's taught in school so people know enough about it to think they're an expert whereas maybe something like the Gulf War general knowledge is not as much?

Sone of the comments on this thread make me wonder if we've learned anything from history.

Agree OP. It’s cringeworthy.

VE Day is celebration of the END of the terrifying war not glorification. My grandparents went through hell in central London so I want to remember their sacrifices and mark the occasion.

So why are the remaining surviviors of that war stuck in Carer Homes without visitors and in danger of dying with Covid?
Time to let it go.

Sorry guys
It was not my intention to offend anyone. I did mention commonwealth countries as well.
Just my opinion.

@JasperRising Rape rates went up as well. And let's not forget that many countries continued to persecute Jews after WW2, not to mention the Voyage of the Damned. The US sent a boatload of Jews back to Europe to die.

Everyone I have talked with (including those who held a safely managed event in the road) had talked in terms of commemorating the terrible loss of life, defeating the Nazis (not Germans) and how we ensure that fascism does not rise again in the upcoming recession. How we salvage what we can if the European project.

No glorifying of war whatsoever.

Oh, and remembering the Caribbean, Indian and Gurkhas ...

Of course we didn’t “stand alone”.

But stringing up bunting and eating cucumber sandwiches and Victoria sponge cake while listening to Vera Lynn is a twee rendition of celebrations that meant something at the time (to people who endured nearly 6 years of war)

This has been making me feel quite uncomfortable today, as though it's been sanitised and made to look all rather romantic.

The struggle and deprivations in the ten years that followed have had little mention. My DM was born in 1942 and my 12 year old DD was horrified to learn that sweets didn't come off ration till she was about 13!

VE Day is celebration of the END of the terrifying war not glorification

That'll be the war that ended in September?

It's the difference between 'commemorate' and 'celebrate'.

I did not live through 6 years of war suffering rationing, bombing, and loss of friends and close family. I do not feel I need to 'celebrate' that coming to an end in the way people did in 1945 with a great outpouring of relief and happiness that it was over (except for those fighting in the Far East of course). I do feel the need to 'commemorate'.

So why are the remaining surviviors of that war stuck in Carer Homes without visitors and in danger of dying with Covid?
Time to let it go

What?? They're in danger of dying they're older and their health is vulnerable. How do you know nobody visits them?

I did mention commonwealth countries as well.

Yeah but you were still wrong...

Because since then we have gone down hill as a country...lost the empire, had to go begging to join the EU, massively in debt to the USA for most of the next 60 years, now have worst poverty in western Europe, Brexit made us a laughing stock, worst death toll from covid which our useless politicians seem to think is a victory

Losing the empire was a good thing. The rest is pretty embarrassing. We were on the right side in the war, even if we do take far too much credit for "winning"

The jingoism isn’t sitting well with me, especially as I have seen St George’s flags among the union jacks.

I’m also stuck that we should be doing our utmost to keep the small number of veterans who are still alive safe and well. Some of the sing-a-long flag waving street parties aren’t a great way to achieve this.

It’s a very important part of history, people risked their lives for our future. My grandad was an RAF officer, he landed a crashing plane and saved lives and he dropped food parcels to the Dutch. I don’t know much about what else he did as he would not talk about it. All my grandparents are gone now so my daughters won’t have a physical connection to the war unlike me. But we need to remember exactly what happened, and tell the story to future generations so the sacrifices of so many men and women do not go forgotten.

If you don’t like it, you can ignore it but don’t be so shocked that so many feel they owe a debt of gratitude to that generation.

@SnackSizeRaisin

How does a country go downhill from being in a state of global conflict, hundreds of thousands dead and entire cities nearly levelled?

Do Americans go on about it to the same extent? Genuinely curious! They're really the ones that won it, aren't they?

I assume they remember VJ day more than VE day.

No. You didn't mention Commonwealth countries. You took our blood and sacrifices for granted.

We endured rations for many more years than we needed to, so we could 'feed the mother country'.

I'm really glad the only fucking tool to say 'we stood alone' did it online.

@JasperRising, yes, commemorate, not celebrate. My mother’s family were treated very badly by some of their neighbours for being “foreign” and Jewish. This didn’t stop when the war ended.

@OhCaptain maybe the americans who "won it" might feel differently if they had lived through being bombed?

We have bomb craters all round us and it has made a huge impact on my DC-as Cubs they walked and learned.
Think Americans were just too removed from that reality to feel the same.

I think those who say we stood alone are not disrespecting the Commonwealth, Poles, Czechs and other allies who stood with us, but possibly referring to the summer of 1940 when Hitler was poised across the channel to invade, but needed to win the skies to make it possible.

The fact that the RAF (yes, with a lot of foreign aircrew in it) held off the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain meant he called off the invasion, instead turning to bombing and then towards Russia - ultimately his fatal mistake of a war on two fronts. Had he successfully invaded Britain, history might have taken a different turn.

Oh, sorry, yes, you finally got there, with a 'yes, but' post about the commonwealth. Of course, this was, once again, your bloody war and your bloody stuff up, aka Treaty of Versailles.