There is another anniversary we're commemorating today, and I'm offering the following,
cross-posted from my blog, as an appropriate way of recognizing it.
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem,
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi.
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
--C. Valerius Catullus, Carmina, 101
(Translation below the break)
I think Catullus' ode to his departed brother is a perfect offering in remembrance of those thousands who gave their lives, 60 years ago today, to erase from Europe and the world the black blot of a tyrannical dictator whose anti-Midas touch corrupted everything that was good and noble and true, whether in his own people and nation, or in human nature generally. The first few lines are particularly appropriate to the circumstances, both of the D-Day landings in Normandy in 1944 and their commemoration today:
Carried through many nations and over many seas
I come, my brother, for these sad funeral rites,
That I might offer for you the final gift to the dead
And speak in vain to your mute ashes,
Since Fortune has wrenched you yourself from me,
Alas, O my poor brother, undeservedly snatched away!
Now, however, for the time being accept these gifts
Flowing with many a fraternal tear, which venerable ancestral
Custom has handed down as the sad duty for the dead
And hail and farewell forevermore, my brother!
(My translation from the Latin)