On May 8, we let the flag go to the top

Every day we see strong images from the terrible wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and one gets a clear impression of how terrible it must be to be exposed to bombs, missiles, tanks and advancing soldiers who subjected the civilian population to gross abuse.

With these two wars, one of them in Europe, in our own “neighbourhood”, as a backdrop, we will mark on Wednesday that it is 79 years since the day of liberation in 1945. The day when Norway was free again after over five years “under the aliens yoke”, as Nordahl Grieg expressed it in the poem “17. May 1940”, which he wrote on board one of the fishing boats that transported Norges Bank’s gold holdings north along the coast during the dramatic spring of the war.

Time naturally takes away from us more and more of the witnesses of the time who can tell about what it was like to live in an occupied country and experience terror and oppression. But what is happening around us these days means that even the generations who have grown up after the war and have never experienced anything other than a free Norway, cannot avoid getting an idea of ​​how wars degenerate and all the evil they bring themselves.

This also enables us to gain an understanding of how big it must have been when peace was a fact on 8 May 1945, and it enables us to understand how important the efforts of all those who fought against the occupying power throughout the war years were .

These made the cause and the goal far more important and greater than their own person, and thousands sacrificed their lives so that rising generations could live and live in a free nation. Many of the war heroes survived the war, but lived with him for the rest of their lives through the deep physical and psychological wounds they suffered.

Second only to May 17, May 8 is the most symbolic day in Norwegian history. A symbol that Nazism was defeated, and that freedom won over a totalitarian regime. It is a day we cannot allow ourselves to forget, a day when we must take care to remind ourselves of how crazy things can go when too much power is gathered in hands that are absolutely not worthy or suited to manage it.

On Liberation Day, we shall remember, honor and thank all those who, on behalf of contemporary and future generations, stood up for the values ​​on which the Kingdom of Norway is founded and who fought for our country.

Certain that we can far from take peace and freedom for granted, that the fight for this will never end, and in gratitude to those who have contributed to us living in a democratic and independent Norway, we let the flag rise to the top in the flagpoles on May 8.

Happy Birthday!