Celebrate the heroes, remember the victims

VE day is perhaps the greatest and most important day of the Twentieth Century. My grandmother remembered hearing church bells for the first time in five years that day.

Remember and celebrate the heroes of the war tomorrow, often very young men and women. They freed us and sacrificed themselves.

But also remember the people whose countries were falling behind the iron curtain on and after VE day, whose lives were going to change in unimaginable and often terrible ways.

The destruction caused by the Soviets on their way to Berlin (to end the war and declare VE day) was brutal, involving wide-spread destruction and massacre.

And the joint occupation of Berlin with the Soviets was part of the new international dynamic that would lead to the Cold War. That lasted for lifetimes: the Berlin wall didn't come down until 1991.

We should celebrate the heroes who made VE day possible, and remember the victims who lived in the new world order.