Dutch famine of 1944
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After the landing of the Allied Forces on D-Day, conditions grew worse in Nazi occupied Holland. The Allies were able to liberate the southern part of the Netherlands, but their liberation efforts came to a halt when the attempt to gain control of the bridge across the Rhein at Arnhem (Operation Market Garden) miserably failed. After the national railways complied with the exiled Dutch government' appeal for a railway strike, to further the Allied liberation efforts, the German administration retaliated by putting 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 stocks in the cities in the western Netherlands rapidly ran out. The adult rations in cities like Amsterdam had dropped to below 1000 calories a day by the end of November 1944. Over that winter, which has been etched in the Dutch peoples memories as the Hongerwinter ("Hunger winter"), as the Netherlands became one of the main western battlefields, a number of factors combined to starve the Dutch people: the winter itself was unusually harsh and together with the widespread dislocation and destruction of the war, the retreating German army destroyed locks and bridges to flood the country and impede the Allied advance, this ruined much agricultural land and made the transport of existing food stocks difficult.
In search for food people would walk for hundreds 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 approximately 30,000 Dutch people starved to death. The Dutch Famine ended with the liberation of the western Netherlands in May 1945.