Today rk heard in one of her favorite radio shows a feature about the anniversary of the end of the battle of Stalingrad. As I've been listening to an audiobook of Beevor's book about Stalingrad, and as I've been reading up about the topic lately for some time (in a reawakened interest in history), she mentioned it to me. Indeed, on the 2nd of February, the remaining German formations in the northern "Kessel" formally capitulated, thus marking the official end of that battle.

Interesting enough, I've never thought about it being the anniversary of the end of the battle. Even though I obviously have a rough idea about the date frame of the event. And even though obviously that's the thing to remember: First, because the start cannot really be pinned down to a single date, and second, because the end of that most gruesome episode in the abyss of human history is what we should remember.