Doing Fine, Thanks
Sir: My heart was wrung as I read in your issue of May 24 about the hardships the English people are suffering. But then I suddenly came to, and realized that Mr. Whiteside must be writing about me. After all, I came here two years ago with my wife and three small children, and we’ve lived on British rations ever since. All of us are well, and all have put on weight.
How is it done? I give top marks to the British government for the fairness with which it has distributed the available food. Children are priority No. 1. All of ours goto school, and get milk and a hot lunch off the ration. In addition, the baby of our family gets an oversize milk ration, and a special issue of orange juice and cod-liver oil every month. Of course, it’s fun to hop over to Paris and eat the whopping black-market meals they serve there, but we’d rather do without them and get our pleasure from the rosy faces of English children. Incidentally, like 90 percent of the people here we’ve never bought anything on the black market and don’t intend to. Are we particularly lucky? Not a bit of it. The latest health statistics show that both infant mortality and the general death rate are at their lowest level in British history.
David C. Williams
London, England
Sir: Three years have passed since our armies liberated thousands of anti-Nazis from … Hitler’s concentration camps. To help such proven fighters for freedom—democratic Spanish Republicans, former underground fighters, and the orphaned children of parents who gave their lives in the resistance—the International Rescue and Relief Committee maintains health clinics and distributes food and clothing throughout free Europe. New Republic readers can help these friends abroad by sending their half-worn-out shoes, clothing and blankets through the IRRC Warehouse, 130 Orchard Street, New York 2, New York. Shipping such a package costs but a few cents.
Sheba Strunsky
Executive Secretary, International Rescue and Relief Committee
New York City
This article originally ran in the July 26, 1948, issue of the magazine.