In the winter of 1944, thousands of Dutch families dug up tulip bulbs and boiled them for dinner. This was not a foraging adventure or a rural custom. This was survival. The Netherlands was starving.
The event is known simply as the Hongerwinter — the Hunger Winter. And even today, eight decades later, every Dutch person knows the word.
How a Railway Strike Became a Catastrophe
In September 1944, the Dutch government-in-exile broadcast a call from London. Railway workers across the Netherlands should go on strike. Allied forces were pushing north through Belgium. A strike would cripple Nazi supply lines and help liberate the country faster.
The railway workers obeyed. Around 30,000 of them walked off the job overnight. It was an extraordinary act of collective courage.
The Germans responded with a food blockade. No goods moved into the major western cities — Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht. Within weeks, shops ran bare. Within months, people were dying.
What Dutch Families Actually Ate
By November 1944, the daily food ration in Amsterdam had dropped to around 1,000 calories. By February 1945, it sat below 400 — roughly the same as two small potatoes. Children walked to school faint with hunger. Elderly people stopped leaving their homes.
Families burned their furniture for warmth. They stripped floorboards from abandoned buildings. People walked for hours into the countryside — trading wedding rings, silverware, and winter coats for a bag of potatoes or a jar of sugar beets.
And when the potatoes ran out, they turned to tulip bulbs.
The Dutch had always grown tulips. Fields of them stretched across the polders west of Amsterdam. In peacetime, those bulbs meant beauty and trade — you can read the full story of how the Dutch once traded tulips like gold. In 1944, they meant food. Boiled and mashed, or ground into a coarse flour, tulip bulbs have almost no nutritional value. But they filled a stomach, briefly. That was enough.
Who Suffered Most
Not everyone suffered equally. The poor had no jewellery to trade and no way to reach the farms. The elderly died quietly in cold flats. Children’s bodies stopped growing, and many never fully caught up.
Historians estimate that between 20,000 and 25,000 people died from starvation or illnesses caused by extreme malnourishment. The exact number is still debated. The geography of suffering is not — it was concentrated in the western cities and experienced most brutally by the urban poor.
Rural provinces and the north fared better. Some farms had enough to scrape through. But if you lived in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, the winter of 1944-45 was the Hongerwinter. That one word said everything.
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The Children Who Carried the Scars
The Hunger Winter became one of the most studied events in the history of nutrition and genetics. Researchers in Amsterdam began tracking the health of children born to mothers who were pregnant during the famine. What they found was remarkable.
These children — even decades later, in their 50s and 60s — showed higher rates of heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. The stress of starvation had altered how their genes expressed themselves. Their children, and even their grandchildren, showed traces of the same patterns.
This was some of the earliest real-world evidence for epigenetics — the idea that environmental trauma can reshape biology across generations. The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study, still cited by researchers worldwide, started here.
Liberation Arrived from the Sky
On 29 April 1945, the skies above the Dutch cities split open — not with bombs, but with food. Allied aircraft dropped parcels of chocolate, flour, corned beef, and dried milk in an operation the Dutch call Operatie Manna. People stood in fields and wept as the crates fell.
Liberation Day came on 5 May 1945, just days later.
The Dutch never forgot it. Every year on 4 May, the country pauses for two minutes of silence — Dodenherdenking, the National Day of Remembrance. Not only for soldiers, but for civilians who starved on streets that still stand today.
The Hunger Winter shaped Dutch food culture in ways that are still visible. Dutch meals are simple, hearty, and never wasteful — not as a trend, but as a memory carried down through families who knew what it meant to have nothing.
If you’re new to the Netherlands and want to understand the layers behind Dutch culture and daily life, the Love Netherlands Start Here guide is the best place to begin.
Where to See This History in Amsterdam Today
The Dutch Resistance Museum (Verzetsmuseum) in Amsterdam tells this story through personal objects — ration books, forged identity papers, hidden radios. It never lets you forget the scale of ordinary suffering. Allow two hours.
Amsterdam also has several Hunger Winter memorials and plaques. The Anne Frank House, just off the Prinsengracht canal, sits in the same neighbourhood where families quietly starved — a reminder that the Hongerwinter was only one layer of the city’s wartime pain. You can read about why the Dutch keep their curtains open — a habit that also has roots in the war years and the culture of transparency that followed.
Ask an older Amsterdammer about the Hongerwinter. Chances are they will tell you their grandmother’s version. The memory has not faded.
Frequently Asked Questions
When did the Dutch Hunger Winter take place?
The Hunger Winter ran from approximately September 1944 to May 1945, during the final phase of the German occupation of the Netherlands. The worst months were November 1944 through April 1945, when food rations fell below survival levels in the western cities.
How many people died in the Dutch Hunger Winter?
Historians estimate between 20,000 and 25,000 people died as a direct result of starvation or illnesses caused by severe malnourishment. Most victims were elderly, urban, and living in poverty with no means to reach farms or trade for food.
Why did the Dutch eat tulip bulbs during the Hunger Winter?
Tulip bulbs were one of the few plant foods still available after the German blockade cut off the cities. Families boiled the bulbs or ground them into flour. They provided very little nutrition but helped fill empty stomachs when all other food sources ran out.
Can you visit Hunger Winter memorials in Amsterdam?
Yes. The Dutch Resistance Museum (Verzetsmuseum) is the best single place to learn about this period, with personal artefacts and first-hand accounts. Amsterdam also has several memorial plaques throughout the city, and guided wartime walking tours run from spring through autumn.
What is the best time to visit Amsterdam for a history trip?
Spring and early summer (April to June) offer the best weather and the most museum and tour availability. Visiting on 4 May lets you witness Dodenherdenking — the National Day of Remembrance — a deeply moving two-minute silence observed across the entire country.
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The frozen canals of Amsterdam still look the same in winter as they did in 1944. The canal houses still lean over the water. The bells still ring. But underneath the beauty, this city holds a weight. You can feel it, if you look.