75th anniversary of losing the war

is a holiday here this year.  I like that about Germany.  Out on a walk, I noticed that all of the Stolpersteine we passed had been polished and these had flowers.  I thought it would be a good blip - what happened in Germany, what ordinary Germans did was so horrific, it defies comprehension, and yet, today Germany stands as a bastion of social democracy, a true leader of western democracies.