Pictures: Europe Stops to Celebrate VE Day 80 Years On

The 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe (VE) Day was celebrated Thursday across the Continent and in the UK, with thousands of people pausing to remember the fight for freedom in World War II and all that entailed. They remembered that Hitler’s Nazi Germany had finally been crushed after a half-decade of invading other European powers and delivering genocide, the Holocaust, mass hatred and the murder of millions of innocents. They saluted the fallen and applauded the brave, happy to solemnly acknowledge how the world was pulled back from the precipice of disaster driven by German Nazism.