8th of May

V-E Day is a public holiday in France. It has not always been. Twice a president decided it would be a "normal" day and twice the day was a public holiday again.

On television and radio we hear about the different ceremonies to celebrate the end of WW2 in Europe. We'll never thank enough all these men who died for France, all the ones coming from across the Atlantic Ocean or across the Channel to give us freedom.

On this day I also think about my two grand-fathers, both were prisoners of war in Germany, one in the north near Russia, one in Bavaria. They were five long years away from wives and children. One of them (on the photo, just above the capital letters) came back home in the late summer 1945 and my grand-mother was really worried having seen all the other men returning to the village several months earlier. So many years lost.

So, as far as I am concerned, the 8th of May is not only the celebration of the end of the war but also the opportunity to think about all men and women who were living at that time and who had such a hard time.