RZ-100-wt4-E-flipbook-240702 - Flipbook - Page 34
Up to 1944, growers are able to keep the food
The Hunger Winter
supply at a reasonable level, but from then on,
In the last year of the war, food scarcity turns into
production quickly goes into a downward spiral.
complete food shortage. Farmlands are depleting,
fuel and electricity are no longer available and
Food scarcity and restrictions lead market
labour is scarce. The western Netherlands relies
gardeners to grow more and more for their own
on the Limburg coal mines to operate its heating
consumption. Potatoes and pulses, but also
and fuel the power plants. However, the south of
tobacco, become the main crops to be cultivated.
the Netherlands is liberated in the autumn of 1944,
They also have to start producing their own
while the west is occupied until May 1945. As the
chicken and pig feed. The fact that a large
Allied advance from the south stalls before the
proportion of Dutch growers are switching and
major rivers, supplies of the important coal are cut
becoming largely self-sufficient doesn’t benefit
off. As a result, the west of the country no longer
the national food supply.
has any electricity or (coal) gas. Added to that,
since the Allies have been advancing in France, the
Germans have already started moving all possible
means of production to Germany. Due to the
shortage of food, hundreds of thousands of city
dwellers are roaming the countryside in search
of food. Everything and everyone is focused on
finding food for themselves and their families.
Although there is hardly any ground combat in
The Westland – the Netherlands’ greenhouse
centre – the greenhouses still suffer a lot of
damage from the anti-aircraft guns of the
German air defences. The thousands of shells
exploding in the air create a rain of shrapnel
that the fragile greenhouses cannot withstand.
Moreover, for defence reasons the Germans
have flooded large parts of The Westland and
demolished many greenhouse farms to build their
fortifications. At the end of the war, it is found that
almost one million square metres of glass was lost
through acts of war.
A sober version of the
1943-1944 price list (above).
The 1944-1945 version is
even typed.
32
Rijk Zwaan | Moving forward together
