Page "Dutch famine of 1944" Paragraph 8

In search of food, people would walk for tens of kilometers to trade valuables for food at farms.

Tulip bulbs and sugarbeets were commonly consumed.

Furniture and houses were dismantled to provide fuel for heating.

From September 1944 until early 1945 the deaths of 18, 000 Dutch people were attributed to malnutrition as the primary cause and in many more as a contributing factor.

The Dutch Famine ended with the liberation of the western Netherlands in May 1945.

Shortly before that, some relief had come from the ' Swedish bread ', which was actually baked in the Netherlands but made from flour shipped in from Sweden.

Shortly after these shipments, the German occupiers allowed coordinated air drops of food by the Royal Air Force over German-occupied Dutch territory in Operation Manna.

The two events are often confused, even resulting in the commemoration of bread being dropped from airplanes, something that never happened.