Word: larded
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...journey back home that the Easterners feared most. The despised Volkspolizei were now checking all trains. Often they confiscated the parcels outright, and sent the lard, canned milk and beans along to their barracks. But those who merely lost their much needed gifts were lucky. The Vopos fined or arrested many. Some were accused of being American agents, a crime punishable by imprisonment or death, and to others the courts began meting out prison sentences as drastic as five years. On top of threat and punishment, the Reds tried by public ridicule to halt the sad parade of their hungry...
...statistic told the whole impressive story: West Berlin food authorities handed out the two-millionth parcel to a needy East German. Thus, within a fortnight, more than 10% of the whole Soviet zone population have defied or evaded their government and risked arrest for a ten-pound package of lard, dried beans, flour and canned milk...
...trains to collect their food. The Reds temporarily eased up, then put the ban back on. They seemed uncertain how to act: remembering the uprisings of June 17, they dared not push their people too hard. For what people would do to get those ten pounds of lard, dried beans, flour and canned milk was a measure of their desperation and dissatisfaction...
Beggar Programs. But neither threat nor ruse stopped the invasion. The East Germans poured into West Berlin and out again, carrying their two pounds of lard, bags of dried beans, peas and flour, and four cans of condensed milk. All together, each parcel was worth about $1,15-not much by Western standards, but plainly a treasure to East Germans. Most came with identity cards of all their family, and some few friends besides, and got a parcel for each one. "I paid 28 marks for my train ticket," said one bedraggled housewife from deep in the Soviet zone...
...food to hungry Easy Germany, and gave the Reds a chance to refuse it. They did, calling the offer an "insult," and thereby stood convicted of condemning East Germans to hunger. U.S. food supplies would still be shipped to Germany, and pictures of U.S. freighters, Hamburg-bound with milk, lard and flour, blazed in Europe's newspapers...