To not want to 'celebrate' VE

[Ramblethroughthebrambles]

I've been asked to take part in VE celebrations this week. I've politely declined. It feels OK to me to join in a solemn commemoration, with a focus on how to make sure this never happens again, but not a celebration of victory which all the UK events seem to be. I'm grateful for the sacrifices so many soldiers and others made and that we didn't become part of the Nazi empire. I completely get why people originally celebrated the end of such an awful war and its hardships. But celebrating military victory 80 years on doesn't sit right with me, especially given the conflicts in the world today. It seems to normalise military intervention and sends the message that military victory is a 'good thing' when often it's a result of failures in international diplomacy/ strategy / long term thinking. I'm not a complete pacifist and recognise there are times when military intervention is a necessary evil. But that doesn't make me want to celebrate it.

I never hear anyone else expressing this view in public. There seems to be an expectation that we'll all want to get the bunting out and have a tea party. So AIBU?

This is why I mentioned Sheila Hancock's piece in the weekend papers. Her article was literally about how different it all felt back then and people today don't really understand how it wasn't a celebration at all, it was sheer relief. She thinks we have moved a long way from what and how we should be 'celebrating'.

What am I supposed to be abjectly ignorant about? Enlighten me - I know what World War 2 was.

I think those dignified soldiers would be truly horrified by the me and ‘my truth’ brigade. Let’s hope we never see a rerun, if these posts are anything to go by…they would be first to throw the country under the nearest bus driven by a dictator.

It could have lasted if the USA hadn’t come in

We've got Pearl Harbour to 'thank' for that. I can never watch that film without crying my eyes out.

The end of a war where the good side won is always something to celebrate I think?

Arguments about the meaning of 'good' and 'winning' another time by all means 😉

I went looking for it and it is certainly a moving piece by Sheila Hancock:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/03/ve-day-second-world-war-sheila-hancock

My grandad used to get fed up with people portraying WW2 as jolly sing songs and cups of tea in air raid shelters. And the myth that everyone was nice and pulled together. He was in a reserved occupation so didn't have to go away but joined the special constabulary. He witnessed all manner of crime and selfishness as well as the trauma of those who'd been bombed out. Black market, profiteering, trying to get one over on the system, looting etc were rife. He said the war was terrifying and hard for most people and everyone was just glad it was over by 1945. I don't know what he'd have made of the current culture of celebratory style events surrounding the world wars. I never knew him go to the war memorial. Most of his generation that I knew just said a silent prayer/thought for those who never came home and then got on with their day.

I agree Op

I see it as an event to commemorate and the outcome and sacrifice as something to be grateful for, and certainly we should never forget, but I'm uneasy celebrating. Of course Nazism was an evil that needed to be fought, but celebration doesn't seem to acknowledge that final victory in WW2 was achieved through the horrors of Dresden and Hiroshima. My parents are British and lived through WW2 and our family suffered losses that still resonate. But we also have family members now in the UK who lived in Dresden pre WW2. I've never dared ask what they feel about celebrations of the allied victory.

Thanks to the pp for the reference to Sheila Hancock's piece. I will have a look at that.

Sorry the quote function didn't work above. I was responding to:

Impostersyndicate · Today 17:41

Well don't take part then. But it's very weird that you don't see the end of world war 2 as an event we should commemorate and celebrate

Bloody well said, my grandfather was in tanks and was of the exact same opinion. He was a desert rat in WW1 and was in France for WW2… he did his duty but he said he saw the absolute worst of humanity and didn’t understand people ‘acting dizzy’ - quiet relief and gratitude rather than bunting and cucumber sandwiches.

I think ‘What Britain would have been like’ is fairly easy to imagine from the experiences of occupied France.

A skeleton government, perhaps in collaboration.
The systematic rounding up of Jews and other minorities.
A rapid and fearful assimilation of the new situation by the population.
People turning against people in their eagerness to either fit in with or oppose the new world order. Remember how quickly that happened in Covid?

We all like to imagine that we would have been a Resistance fighter, but history shows probably not.

The wounds still lie deep in many French communities.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/apr/25/comment.bookscomment

I’m not participating in the commemorations. Obviously, I’m very well aware of the sacrifices made by so many people in WW2 and of the scale of the horrors committed by the Nazis, which meant that the war had to be fought & won.

But, because my heritage is 100% Irish, I have no family connections with the British military, so these anniversaries always seem to be for those who lost relatives or who do have military links. I would feel like an imposter if I did participate.

It is all a bit bizarre. Nobody really did much about it in the decades immediately after WWII but for the past 30 years, with progressively fewer people around who were actually alive at the time, we seem to have had the growth of this mad cos-playing movement with bunting and trifle and the like.

Umm the country was on rations and whole towns blown to smithereens. The entire nation collectively suffering from PTSD and trauma. Why would you think this was appropriate? We were rebuilding the country and people’s lives.

There are specific days (not just one, multiple) where we commemorate the Shoah. One was just last week.

Of course, its tinged with sadness either way - but say what you want about the allies not bombing the train tracks, at least they did fight against Hitler.

I think WW2 was very different to other wars in that sense, in that truly the world was fighting against pure evil. Also civilians were really part of the war, the bombings, evacuation, being involved in war work, being called up, rationing...there was huge civilan loss of life.

Presumably your relatives think the Allied victory was a good thing, because it ended Nazism. It involved horrific destruction and loss of life. That’s what happens in a war.

Again the celebration is not ‘hurrah we flattened Dresden’, it’s ‘we did what we had to and came through it’. I don’t know anyone who thinks the war was all buns and bunting.

I felt today's TV coverage became a bit too focused on the Royal family. I appreciate that they are figureheads for the country but I don't think today should have about them. My eyes were drawn to the veterans sitting around them and wondered what their thoughts and emotions were today.

I have an unpopular opinion on our commemorations of anything related to the World Wars; they seem to have a tendency to become a bit too Keep Calm and Carry On/Victory Rolls/scones and jam/Glenn Miller/Union Jack/Blitz spirit themed. During the D Day commemorations last year, there was a touring exhibition of knitted scenes from a day where over 4000 service people were slaughtered. Knitting??!

I always feel deeply moved by these commemorations but sometimes I just feel uncomfortable. I can't adequately explain why though!

Do what you want to do. No one really gives a fuck!

Agree. I don’t even see these posts as their truth - if Nazism rose again tomorrow they would be bloody celebrating its end when the time came. This is virtue signalling and nothing more.

I'm with you OP. There are wars going on all round the world - the most appalling situations with many civilian deaths. In such circumstances, it seems improper to be engaging in what seems very much like a celebration. Of course, the people who were alive then very much wanted to celebrate - but that was then and this is now.

If the Allies had lost it would have been them in the dock for war crimes and the narrative would have been about how good triumphed over the evils of firebombing civilians and using atomic weapons on them.

It was right to celebrate the end of WW2 in 1945, now we should just remember. My father was a prisoner of war in Germany and never spoke about it..I find all the dressing up, dancing to swing bands and music difficult to reconcile with the vile reality.

The far right is already risen, for fuck's sake. What is anyone doing about it?

The virtue signalling is coming from our politicians and state broadcaster, while we make plans for an actual fascist to come over for a state visit and play some golf. It's hypocrisy. Of the highest order. And when it suits, we'll be sending young men off to fight again somewhere else 'for freedom, to make the world a better place'.

I'd bet a £ to a penny that the majority of servicemen who fought would be appalled at where the world is currently and would be wondering what the fuck they fought for. Those still alive who were at the Cenotaph today are remembering their fallen friends, not celebrating anything.