DELFT, Netherlands — Ben Buitenhuis doesn’t really experience hunger. Since the end of World War II, when survival depended on scrounging for milk powder or lining up for meals made from flower bulbs, he’s hardly felt it.
“My wife used to say, ‘If I have to wait for you, I’ll never get any food,’” he recalled, amused by memories of his wife Ria, who passed away in 2023. “I think it’s because of the war when we never had enough to eat. I don’t know the feeling of hunger.”
Now an 83-year-old retired truck driver, Buitenhuis, considers himself fortunate compared to many others.
The Nazi occupation in the Netherlands ended on May 5, 1945, too late for approximately 20,000 individuals who succumbed to starvation or freezing temperatures during The Hunger Winter of 1944-45.
Although Allied forces liberated the southern Netherlands in 1944, the densely populated western regions, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, had to wait for months until the Germans finally surrendered.
On Monday, the 80th anniversary of this freedom will be commemorated with veterans and dignitaries gathering in Wageningen, where German leaders signed the surrender order. The Netherlands will also pay respects to the war dead the previous day.
During the months before liberation, the western region faced famine. The severe winter brought on a lack of food and heating fuel.
As the German occupiers focused on feeding their homeland’s war campaign, a rail strike, called by the Dutch government-in-exile, halted trains carrying essential food supplies from the eastern Netherlands to the west.
This strike, initiated in September 1944 to bolster the Allied forces’ push into Germany, inadvertently cut off supplies to the west.
Residents like Buitenhuis devised ways to survive. A 1945 photo shows him next to a girl named Neeltje, both clutching plates and spoons—iconic of the children’s plight.
He recalls visiting a milk factory near his home in Delft, waiting until milk powder sacks fell and broke. He moistened his bowl so the powder would stick when water washed off most of it.
“That way we’d have a sort of milk,” he explained.
Children also learned to snatch sugar beets with sticks from passing carts. Recipes for cooking tulip bulbs circulated to provide some nourishment.
Many families traveled to the east or north seeking food and warmth, and initiatives arose to rescue the starving. Churches, governments, and rural foster families offered support.
Those like Buitenhuis who survived carried the scars of hunger. Post-war, he recuperated in sanatoriums along with other children; he spent six weeks at one.
In his ninth-floor Delft apartment, he reflects on those times without anger, appreciating the ongoing commemoration of the war.
“It’s important to keep so that people understand what freedom is,” he emphasized.
Although he values these commemorations, Buitenhuis chooses not to dwell on the past.
“Look at what’s in front of you, not what’s behind,” he advised. “That’s over, you can’t get it back.”