Remember

just two weeks from today (when this column is being written), on April 25, we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Meeting on the Elbe River. On that day in 1945, after four years of war, US and Soviet troops linked up in the town of Torgau, in eastern Germany, cutting Nazi Germany in half. The end of the war was near (just two weeks off, in fact), and hopes for a new era loomed large.

In the decades that followed, the Elbe meeting came to symbolize the potential for peaceful, collaborative relations between the US and the Soviet Union, and has been resurrected in films, books and elsewhere, particularly during times of bilateral stress – of which there have been plenty since World War II.

The photo opportunity on the Elbe was a carefully stage-managed event meant to suggest that simple soldiers might be stand-ins for their governments. But nothing could be further from the truth. What the Elbe meeting actually demonstrated is the gaping disparity between what happens between governments and what happens between their people.

The meeting on the Elbe

Look closely at the expressions on the faces of the two men in this photo (William Robertson and Alexander Sylvashko). Are they beaming about the prospects for a new, long-term friendship between the US and the USSR? Not really. If anything, they look a bit stiff, wary about this strange situation they find themselves in. Yet they do seem happy – most likely because they know that the end is near, that Germany has been beaten and the killing can stop.

Governments, bureaucracies and armies did not win the war in Europe. It was won by the millions of individual men and women who fought, labored and died on its many fronts. And it is to them – Russians, Ukrainians, Americans, French, British, all the citizens of the allied states – that we owe our un-payable debt of gratitude.

This is something to remember during the heavily stage-managed events set to commemorate the 70th anniversary of May 9. And it is why, for our lead story on this anniversary, we chose a feature about one man’s effort to recognize some of the brave veterans of the War – to hear their individual stories.

The divide between the interests of governments and peoples is also important to remember in this time of steadily worsening US-Russian relations. We cannot expect or wait on governments to “reset” things. They, after all, are the ones that stuck the wrench in the works in the first place.

Just as during the difficult periods of the 1960s and 1980s, in the 2010s it is independent citizen organizations and direct communications and connections between Russians and Americans that must turn the tide. We must do all we can to encourage and support their work.

At the same time, we must carefully weigh the words and deeds emanating from any orifice of any government. Centuries of human history have shown that those in power are obsessed with gaining “victory” in this or that battle or even some larger war. Whereas sane citizens on all sides would just like the fighting to stop.

Enjoy the issue.

And thank a veteran.