Fri 11th May 1945   - finding food again by quietpurplehaze

Fri 11th May 1945 - finding food again

"Bill and I also found a warehouse in the main street and on entering we saw many civilians filling up sacks with sugar, flour and anything which was edible. We dived in and soon had well over a hundredweight of sugar which Bill took away.

I started to fill a sack with flour when up came two Czech guards. They herded everyone out and I took what flour I had but was not allowed to pass outside with it. I was very annoyed and I remember I shouted what German I could think of at the time to the two guards.

They told me I would be getting food later on so I wouldn’t need the flour. I let the sack fall to the floor which sent up a puff of dust and took my leave of them. We had the sugar anyway.

We visited the Serbs daily and in this manner we had sufficient food. The Czechs opened a dining place and there we obtained a soup twice daily. We went to another café and had a mid-day meal of vegetables for which we had to pay. I had a few marks left and so was able to pay.



from the PoW diaries of my dad, Bert Martin
©SWWEC
©IWM
People certainly weren't obese in those days! Perhaps we should introduce a bit of rationing to tackle the obesity crisis! I'm sure despite the lack of meat, etc. people were healthier and they must have been to survive during the war years especially the soldiers
May 11th, 2012  
@rosiekind I think what you say is true.
May 11th, 2012  
@rosiekind You know I was thinking just that reading the earlier posts - we wouldn't want to starve people again but food is so easy to come by now, especially unhealthy stuff, that it's probably just too easy and a bit of rationing would make us all appreciate it a lot more. The wastage now is terrible too. It's too easy for me anyway - my diet isn't going well but these diary entries are keeping me away from the biscuits!
May 11th, 2012  
@judithg We don't always appreciate how easy it is for us until we read something like this and I think Hazel has been brilliant to post all these excerpts from her Dad's diary as a reminder of how we should be thankful for the easy life we have. We owe her father's generation so much
May 11th, 2012  
Another great post. Times were hard ....
May 12th, 2012  
Agree with all comments - he has beautiful hand writing.
May 14th, 2012  
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