Dutch famine of 1944 The Dutch famine of 1944 , known as the " Hongerwinter " ( " Hunger winter " ) in Dutch , was a famine that took place in the German - occupied part of the Netherlands , especially in the densely populated western provinces above the great rivers , during the winter of 1944 - 1945 , near the end of World War II . A German blockade cut off food and fuel shipments from farm areas to punish the Dutch for their reluctance to aid the Nazi war effort . Some 4 . 5 million were affected and survived because of soup kitchens . About 22 , 000 died because of the famine . Most vulnerable according to the death reports were elderly men . Causes and history . Towards the end of World War II , food supplies became increasingly scarce in the Netherlands . After the landing of the Allied Forces on D - Day , conditions grew increasingly worse in the Nazi - occupied Netherlands . The Allies were able to liberate the southern part of the country , but their liberation efforts came to an abrupt halt when Operation Market Garden , their attempt to gain control of the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem , failed . The seizure of the approaches to the port of Antwerp ( the Battle of the Scheldt ) was delayed due to Montgomery ' s preoccupation with Market Garden . After the national railways complied with the exiled Dutch government ' s appeal for a railway strike starting September 1944 to further the Allied liberation efforts , the German administration retaliated by placing an embargo on all food transports to the western Netherlands . By the time the embargo was partially lifted in early November 1944 , allowing restricted food transports over water , the unusually early and harsh winter had already set in . The canals froze over and became impassable for barges . Food . Food stocks in the cities in the western Netherlands rapidly ran out . The adult rations in cities such as Amsterdam had dropped to below 1000 kilocalories ( 4 , 200 kilojoules ) a day by the end of November 1944 and to 580 kilocalories in the west by the end of February 1945 . Over this " Hongerwinter " ( " Hunger winter " ) , a number of factors combined to cause starvation of the Dutch people : the winter itself was unusually harsh and the retreating German army destroyed docks and bridges to flood the country and impede the Allied advance . As the Netherlands became one of the main western battlefields , the widespread dislocation and destruction of the war ruined much of its agricultural land and made the transport of existing food stocks difficult . The areas affected were home to 4 . 5 million people . Butter disappeared after October 1944 . The supply of vegetable fats dwindled to a minuscule seven - month supply of 1 . 3 liters per person . At first 100 grams of cheese were allotted every two weeks ; the meat coupons became worthless . The bread ration had already dropped from 2 , 200 to 1 , 800 and then to 1 , 400 grams per week . Then it fell to 1 , 000 grams in October , and by April 1945 to 400 grams a week . Together with one kilogram of potatoes , this then formed the entire weekly ration . The black market increasingly ran out of food as well , and with the gas and electricity and heat turned off , everyone was very cold and very hungry . 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 . Legacy . This famine was close to unique as it took place in a modern , developed and literate country , albeit suffering under the privations of occupation and war ( other example : the famine during the siege of Leningrad ) . The well - documented experience has allowed scientists to measure the effects of famine on human health . The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study , carried out by the departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics , Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam , in collaboration with the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in Britain , found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to diabetes , obesity , cardiovascular disease , microalbuminuria and other health problems . Moreover , the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller , as expected . However , surprisingly , when these children grew up and had children those children were " also " smaller than average . These data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation . The discovery of the cause of Coeliac disease may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine . With wheat in very short supply there was an improvement of a children ' s ward of Coeliac patients . Stories tell of the first precious supplies of bread being given specifically to the ( no longer ) sick children , prompting an immediate relapse . Thus in the 1940s the Dutch paediatrician Dr . Willem Dicke was able to corroborate his previously researched hypothesis that wheat intake was aggravating Coeliac disease . Later Dicke went on to prove his theory . Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in the Netherlands during the famine . She suffered from anemia , respiratory illnesses , and edema as a result . Also , her clinical depression later in life has been attributed to malnutrition . Subsequent academic research on the children who were affected in the second trimester of their mother ' s pregnancy , found an increased incidence of schizophrenia in these children . Also increased among them were the rates of schizotypal personality and neurological defects .