Drawing of a plane dropping food parcels during Operation Manna, made by Gerdien Versteeg, 1946
Item Reference : cny02957

Description

Drawing made by Gerdien Versteeg following her experience of Operation Manna, as a small child. It shows an Allied aircraft dropping a food parcel. This drawing was one of several she made at school following the momentous events of spring 1945, but is dated 1946. What she went through made such an impression on her that she was still making drawings of the events a year later. Gerdien Versteeg and her family were on the brink of starvation, along with millions of other Dutch civilians, in the spring of 1945. Four years of German occupation and a bitter winter had used up all the food and fuel supplies; many had resorted to eating tulip bulbs. In April and May 1945, Operation Manna began to drop thousands of tons of food to the starving Dutch. Allied aircraft, which had once carried bombs over Gerdien's house, now dropped life-saving food parcels.

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