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Exhibitions
- 'Adventurers and Pirates' - Hetton Coal Company, 1820
- Looking back at Consett Steel Works
- Celebrating Gala Day 2020
-
County Durham remembers VE Day 1945
- 'We have come through' - Remembering VE Day 1945
- 9th Battalion DLI: From D-Day to Berlin
- 9th Battalion DLI: VE Day
- 9th Battalion DLI: In Berlin, June - September 1945
- Berlin Victory Parade, 7 September 1945
- Victory Parade at Belsen, 8 May 1945
- The Northern Echo, Victory edition, 9 May 1945
- VE Day and Durham Schools
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Burma 1945
- 2nd Battalion DLI: Rangoon Victory Parade, 15 June 1945
- VE Day and the Durham Miners' Association
- County Durham celebrates VE Day
- Haswell Victory Celebrations, 1945
- Soldier: Victory Souvenir edition, 8 May 1945
- Parade: European Victory edition, 26 May 1945
- VE Day not forgotten by one Spennymoor family
- County Durham celebrates VJ Day
- Victory Day, 8 June 1946
'We have come through' - Remembering VE Day 1945
Part of an online exhibition from Durham County Record Office commemorating the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe on 8 May 1945

By the end of March 1945, Hitler's Germany, under attack from all sides, was collapsing in ruins. An Allied victory seemed certain. It was only a matter of time. Then, on 30 April 1945, as Soviet forces advanced on the devastated centre of Berlin, Hitler killed himself, and, with his death, German resistance finally ended.
German forces in Italy had already surrendered on 29 April. Berlin's surviving defenders followed on 2 May and on 4 May all German forces in North West Germany and Denmark surrendered on Lüneburg Heath to Field Marshal Montgomery commanding the 21st Army Group.
Extract from 'SEAC' The Services Newspaper of South East Asia Command, 30 April 1945, printed in Calcutta (D/DLI 7/60/26)
The Northern Echo, Monday 7 May 1945 (D/Dor 7/5).
VE Day Newspapers (PDF, 139kb)
Three days later at Rheims, early in the morning of 7 May, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower. The next day, 8 May, at the insistence of Stalin, the Soviet leader, a second surrender document was signed in Berlin. The war in Europe was finally over.
Selected from Durham County Record Office's own collections, including the Durham Light Infantry (DLI) Archive, this exhibition will look at how Victory in Europe was celebrated by civilians and soldiers not only on VE Day itself (Tuesday 8 May 1945) but also in the days, weeks and months that followed.
However, though the war in Europe was over, the Second World War was still raging in the Far East and it was not until Wednesday 15 August 1945 that Victory over Japan (VJ Day) was finally achieved. And that victory is not forgotten.
Images © reproduced with kind permission of Newsquest Media Group Ltd and Newcastle Chronicle and Journal.
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