Victory Day is celebrated on May 9th in Moldova. In some villages, Europe Day is celebrated instead, and in many, both holidays are celebrated simultaneously. Both holidays celebrate the victory over Germany during World War II and remember those that fought and lost their lives in the war.
In our village, all of the students and teachers gathered at the school (there were no lessons for the day), and walked the short ways to our village’s World War II monument by the park. Some community members and those that work at our mayor’s office also joined us.
Some students recited a poetry about peace and a teacher introduced the daughter of one of the men from our village who fought in the war. There was a gun salute, and then each person passed by the monument and laid flowers in memory of those that lost their lives or fought in the war. It was a short and simple ceremony.
My host mom told me that in the past, it was a much bigger holiday, and there was a parade through the village attended by almost everyone in the village. My village was directly in the middle of the front line during the war. As a result, there are almost no houses that are older than 70 years old, as almost everything was destroyed.
Some students walked to the cemetery with a teacher to lay flowers on the graves of the Romanian soldiers that died here while fighting. It was unusual in Moldova to have buried and marked the graves of the Romanian soldiers, mostly unnamed, after the war. However, our village has a section of the cemetery dedicated to just them, with stone crosses marking the graves.
Since the day is a national holiday, we had the rest of the day off. Many families have barbecues or picnics, a lot like Memorial Day in the United States.
The Oke Den 