大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer of the Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of Wilhelmina Slight- Metselaar and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I can remember well what it was like to be hungry.
We ate rabbits, but my father insisted that the legs were left on the rabbit, just in case they tried to sell him a cat. Many people died in the 'hungerwinter,' especially the old and the very young did not survive the hardship. The Swedish Red Cross had heard of the starvation in Holland and sent ships with flour, margarine and tins of sardines for all school children, so one day in March 1945 I came out of school and on the table was a very white loaf of bread with a Swedish flag on it, a packet of margarine and a tin of sardines. If you ask me what is the most delicious thing you have ever eaten...well it is a slice of bread with margarine and a sardine.
Most German soldiers realised that the war was coming to an end and in Leiden we saw very old German soldiers who would be happy when it all ended and they could go home to their families. We also had many white Russians in the town.
We heard from people who managed to listen to the 大象传媒 that the Britsh Air Force was planning food droppings. We lived in a house with a flat roof and one day we noticed that foreign aircraft were flying very low over our houses. My friend and I climbed onto the roof and saw one of the planes coming over and could even see the pilot in the cockpit. Everybody waved with sheets, pillowcases or anything that was white. It took quite a while for the food droppings to be distribted, but at least we knew it was coming.
Now we were waiting for the liberation! The first days of May the Germans were retreating fast and on the 5th May the first Canadian scout came on his motorbike and some time later the Canadian troops followed. It was a fantastic feeling, everybody was so happy -there was absolutly no alchohol, very little food, but simply freedom.

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