Famine relief

  • White Bread from Sweden

    The Swedish white bread was a great gift to the Dutch population. Unfortunately, it was only a brief bright spot, and the winter of 1944–45 was not only extremely harsh but also very long-lasting. Swedish White Bread At the end of January 1945, the Red Cross transported flour from Sweden by ship. Only a month…

    Read more →

  • “We Are the World” is a charity single recorded in 1985 by the supergroup USA for Africa. Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian, the song was released as part of the album We Are the World. Selling over 20 million physical copies, it ranks as the…

    Read more →

  • One might be forgiven for thinking the photo above is from a very impoverished country, but it is not. In fact, it is a photo of a family living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Even during World War II, the Netherlands was a country of wealth—albeit not all the wealth was…

    Read more →

  • During the winter of 1944/45 approximately 20,000 citizens died in the so-called Hunger Winter, the Dutch famine. A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm towns. Some 4.5 million were affected and survived thanks to soup kitchens. As the war was wrapping up in April of 1945, in an effort to alleviate…

    Read more →