Letter From the Netherlands, 1940

They are from a collection called The Illegal Camera. I read about it in a New York Times review that spoke of a series of photographs more than half a century old depicting what came to be known as "The Hunger Winter." That caught my interest, but only hinted at the incredible drama behind these pictures.

On May 10, 1940, German troops entered and began a long occupation of the previously neutral Netherlands. Over the next five years the Netherlands lost more of its Jewish population than any other Western European country. At the war's end only 27,000 Jews had survived from a pre-occupation population of 140,000. As the German military presence and subsequent round up of Jews to concentration camps increased, German Civil Law was imposed restricting photographers from shooting or publishing any unapproved subject.

An underground resistance developed. By working from secret vantage points or hiding their cameras in coats and bags, Dutch photographers were able to document, albeit in oddly tilted and blurred photos, the tragic developments in their country. One of the most tragic came during the winter of 1945, one of the coldest on record. The shortage of foods resulting from the German occupation, strikes, and evacuations brought severe starvation and death, especially in the large cities like Amsterdam. The underground photographers not only sought to record their images for posterity, but courted even greater danger by smuggling them to England to convince the Dutch government-in-exile and Allied forces to authorize food drops to alleviate the suffering.

The black and white images themselves, of a boy with bony legs sticking out from his nightshirt, six emaciated bodies awaiting burial, a woman struggling to raise a crust of bread to her mouth, are horrible and sad. But they are not nearly as remarkable as what we don't see, just inches from the lens, which is the photographers themselves who accepted the gravest possible risks to their lives and their families to tell the world of hunger. Just think about it. They had no money, no weapons, no legal right to conduct their work. But they had the power to bear witness, as do we all. And they had the courage to use it.

America faces a "hunger winter" of a very different sort. The repeal of welfare and cuts in food stamps, including $14 billion from the three million families who fall below half the poverty line, making less than $6200 a year, will take food away from children and send some of them into the streets. Millions will be hungry in the months ahead.

Hunger here is due to poverty, ignorance and injustice. There is of course no comparing this to the unparalleled horror of the Holocaust. But there is inspiration to be taken from the handful of brave patriots who knew that for all they couldn't do there was one thing they could, and that was to see and tell a story that needed to be told. In our country the camera is not illegal. We have not only the power but the right to see, to tell, to speak out, to insist that our fellow citizens take notice and act. We have hunger close to home. What we don't have is an excuse for silence.

Today's leaders don't want to risk a campaign contribution or a single percentage point in the polls, let alone their careers or lives, to speak out on behalf of the politically incorrect hungry. In truth, there weren't many that stuck their necks out 50 years ago in Europe. There certainly weren't enough. But there were a few, a handful who knew that for all they couldn't do there was one thing they could, and that was to see and tell a story that needed to be told then, and maybe even more so now.

Near the end of the exhibition there's one picture that was taken out in the open. It's the day after the Netherlands have been liberated. It is of a very small parade. Three young boys are standing on an empty cobblestone street alongside a canal. They are in short pants and torn and tattered coats. One wear's boots, one wears slippers, and one has no shoes at all. The smallest one is standing in front waving a flag, and the two behind him are banging sticks across the top of large tin boxes. Their smiles are tentative, fragile, as if not sure this moment of freedom can last. If you look very closely at the tin boxes they have fashioned into drums, you can see the stenciled letters on the side of the air-dropped provisions that spell : welfare biscuits.

The months ahead will severely tax the resources of Share Our Strength and every other organization with whom we work to ensure that no American goes hungry. I'm confident that together we will get emergency food assistance to all who need it. We're on pace to break all records and raise more than $16 million this year. But it will take more than food to bring an end to America's "hunger winter". It will take more than money. It will take moral courage and leadership.

If there is to come a time in this country when children who were once scared and hungry can joyously beat drumsticks against the welfare packages they no longer need, it will be because Americans have recognized that there is a role for everyone in the fight against hunger and poverty. Whether we are rich or poor, black or white, educated or unskilled, each of us has at least the strength to do one personal but profound thing: bear witness to a common vision of what decency and humanity can mean.

The Dutch photographers pictures show what hunger looked like half a century ago, under extraordinary, unprecedented circumstances. But if you look carefully, indeed if you look beyond them, you can see straight through to what a courageous heart could achieve then, now and ever.