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They were Prepared 07

HOLLAND

Rotterdam

IT was not long, however, before an urgent call came from Rotterdam, and the kitchen and canteen team found more than enough to do to feed a thousand people—the poorest of the poor, some of whom had literally no clothes to wear nor houses to live in. They were the bombed-out slum population of the city, who, in the winter, when no other fuel was available, had torn away the structure of their temporary wooden shelters to make fires for heating and cooking what meagre food they could get. Now a family, sometimes of ten to fourteen people, was living in one room—without heat, water, sanitation, artificial light or furniture, apart perhaps from a metal bedstead perched on a foundation of rubble.

A G.I.S. relief team had recently come out from England, and had been waiting in Tilburg for a posting. They now dealt with another area of Rotterdam—the dockside—where con- ditions were little better. For months before liberation, the people here had lived through the winter largely on sugar beet and small quantities of potatoes, and were thankful for the food now brought to them. This team got together a committee from the local inhabitants, and together they assessed and met as far as possible the needs for clothing, particularly shoes, cleansing, and evacuation of children. G.I.S. vehicles and drivers were kept busy, taking children or expectant mothers to hospital, collaborators for examination—occasionally the mentally deranged to an asylum.

Morale recovered quickly with the know-ledge that there were friendly people in the world only too willing to help them in their difficulties. The Dutch social services began to function again, and the teams were free to go on to Germany—that is, all except one: the Mobile Hospital unit and the laboratory section were urgently required in the locality.

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