‘By SGT. JACK PHILLIPS oO 7 INTER is here to stay : in this little Dutch ii own of less than 10,000. "he streets. and sidewalks =e covered with snow and ice nd there is always a nip in je air. The dampness of the imate makes ten above zero sem like ten below. Holl&nd- ss are poorly clad and poorly jod, unless they have bought - traded on the black market, | received gifts from Cana- ian and Enslish soldiers. It’s imrising how many civilians bu see with boots, gloves and sher items of army apparel. ou also see quite a few male Villans with grey colored reatcoats ‘of the German remy. Wooden shoes are more gymmon than they have ever een, but most wearers can’t archase slippers or felt insoles ) wear inside of them. In the entire town, it would 2 difficult to find a home with tore than one fire burning, ecause coal is very scarce. ji households, exclusive of anted rooms in occupied 5mes, have been allowed four yal coupons -for the ‘winter. ae8 coupon is good for 163 | Sunds of coal. This means a otal of only 672 pounds for the inter, no matter what size the duse, and no matter how many » the family. For those who cefer coke, when available, iere is twice as much. Commercial establishments, ich as stores and cafes, re- sive no coal, and are very cold ‘aces to visit. [I had a beer a eafe today. The proprietor Id me he burns coal in the fe stove on Saturdays and aindays—out of his home ra- >n—and that he has used up =o of his coupons already. dow i am going to get rough the winter, he said, 4 don’t know!” “Why don’t you burn wood?” sked another soldier. “Wood very searce in Holland,’ re- “ied the man, “and so is trans- ert for civilian needs. {ff I as to burn wood in my cafe very day it would cost me at ‘ast 15 Guldens ($6.30) a day -and you have to do a .:< busi- 28S in ice cold beer t¥ pe able >) afford that much on fuel.” I went to our Auxiliary ervices’ cinema last night and aw “Song of Bernadette.” It tas bitter cold in the picture duse and [I wore my greatcoat, loves and hat during the per- trmance. Every other soldier 1 the audience was dressed ist as warmly as I, and fas just as cold. We have an™ llowanee of coal for offices nd our billets where large umbers of men sleep, but it is ot enough to provide fuel to fat the cinema every day. School children in this com- winity attend school for only me and a half hours every shool day, and do most of their fork at home. There is no fuel ) heat the classrooms. In every home, the kitchen tove is the most important em of household equipment. m this stove meals are cooked nd washing boiled. Clothes ange around and over it to dry - chen stove. SGT. JACK PHILLIPS and the family hovers about it from time to time to keep warm. The first invitation you receive on entering a Dutch home, day or night, is to sit by the stove. _There has been no running water in this town since last August and the women have to carry water in pails from one of the several pumps in the community. Sometimes there is an army water trailer close by, with water to spare, and the weary housewife or daughter is saved many steps. Toilets have to be flushed with ‘basins or pails, and bathing means carrying a lot of water, heat- ing it and washing by the kit- Coal is neéded to pump water to the faucets, and if coal was used for this pur- pose there would be none for the kitchen stove. HE CENTRAL electric plant that supplied this town with current was destroyed by the Germans before they left. To- day, there is a limited= amount of current for all homes. Householders may burn one 25 watt lamp from 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.. Current is so strin- gently rationed because it is supplied by two shoe factories with deisel generators. Baker- shops, hospitals and other es- sential establishments receive a higher allotment. The food situation has im- proved somewhat in the past month, particularly im regards to bread, fats and sugar, but meat is still searcer than it Was under the Germans. The bottom dropped out of the black market here when the allies came, because everyone thought supplies would follow very quickly, in a matter of a few weeks. Now, with the best industrial and agricultural areas of their country still oc- cupied, with a dearth of raw materials and almost no civi- “lian communications, the black mariet seems to be worse than ever. No one who has lived here any length of time can doubt that prices are more fantastic than ever. To give you an example: Mr. QO. is a village postman close by. He now earns about 50 guildens a week, about twice). as much as he did before the war..He needs a pair of slip- pers, but he can’t buy one for less than 50 guldens on- the black market. Mr. H., with whom I am living, is a slipper manufacturer. His factory was almost completely destroyed: when patriots blew up an am- munition train close by, and he works in the office with a hand sewing machine he bought on the black market. He has very little raw material, ex- cept what he .salvaged from the home of the Dutch Nazi who succeeded him, a Jew, as owner in 1942, without paying - a gulden. He has tried to pur- chase machinery and materials from the Dutch authorities, but they say they must hold on to it till all of Holland is liberated. Mr. H. is very impatient: and wants to turn out slippers and shoes now, so the government traders P. A. Features, February 10 — Page 11 can use them where they are most needed. In the mean- time, he turns out a few pairs of slippers by hand, and super- vises the work of five of his former staff who work with him. The other day he went to a farmer for some bacon. The farmer wanted 50 guldens for ten slices of bacon. Mr. H. pointed out that in peace time ten such slices of bacon sold for the same price as one pair of slippers. The farmer agreed, and they made a deal. But the postman has nothing to offer except money, if he ean af- ford it, and it is very hard to- find a slipper manufacturer who makes slippers by hand. There are many shoemakers in Holland who make shoes by hand, but they want as much as 400 guldens a pair, _if they have the leather. Others make a good pair of shoes for 400 cigarettes. i There is a real searcity of food, raw materials.and trans- portation in the country. Along- side of this self-evident fact we must place the fact that there is too much curreney in cir- culation. Unpatriotic farmers, and speculators are hoarding and selling on the blackmarket and making for- tunes. That this is true, no one here doubts. But it is also true that many farmers, traders, merchants and manufacturers are holding on to their stocks, trading for barter or selling at inflated prices because they are trying to eke out moré than a mere existence in these abnor- mal times of scarcity and al- most worthless money. ~ Not that I excuse them. To the contrary, when times are as hard as they are now in free Holland the authorities should be very firm in controlling all supplies needed by the people and should organize distribu- tion on the basis of need, irre- spective of wealth or position. For instance, while school chil- dren are almost barefooted, a eertain citizen digs out a bit of leather from its hiding place They Need Our Goods and makes 300 pocket books to sell on the black market at 15 guldens each. Mr. H., whom I have already referred to, claims that there is much leather in magazines that can be made into shoes, and machinery to be had for his factory, but try as he will he can’t convince the authori; ties to sell him these necessities so he can produce shoes and sell them to the government for distribution where most needed. Not being in touch with the government, I am unable to judge the soundness of Mr. H.’s ease, but I do know that what ~ he wants to buy from the goyv- ernment represents only a por- tion of what the Dutch Nazis took away from him under the Germans, leave alone the dam- age to his buildings. Now, he -ean’t even buy nails to make some minor repairs in his of- fice. If ever UNRRA was needed, it is in liberated Holland. Not only is UNRRA needed to feed and clothe the people now, but to supply communications, ma- chinery and raw materials to start the wheels of industry working again—to put people to work and to help restore the internal and .external trade of the country. Confident ins the ultimate success of Allied arms, the vast majority of the people in lib- erated Holland are eagerly looking forward to the day when military conditions will permit the go-ahead signal to be flashed for large scale as- sistance to their distressed country. Also, they hope that by that time, and not to far dis- tant from this date, all of their beloved land will be free of the hated and despised Germans. a LIOR EUN =-FROM THE F.B.1.! SCSH! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING ! HONEST! Ve DONES TAKE IT EASY, JONES! MR. FARREL HAS SOME- THING TO SAY TO YOu-- SO I'LL LEAVE You WO ALONE. — =) 7 Se SA Nj es Be {LL COME TO THE POINT,