"Quotes" From Alumni
HURLBUT ' 18 SAYS BEST HOPE FOR FRANCE IS "V FOR VICTORY"
JOHN B. HURLBUT '18 returned with Mrs. Hurlbut to his home in Hartford, Conn., in August after almost 20 years' residence in southern France. He admitted it was an escape from the terrors and hardships of Nazi rule in "unoccupied" Cannes and the growing threat of a concentration camp in "undeclared" war with the United States. Until their departure, Mr. and Mrs. Hurlbut had been working with the Anglo-American Ambulance Corps of Cannes which they helped to form in 1939, six months before the outbreak of the present war in Europe, and of which Mr. Hurlbut was vice-president. Founded in connection with the British-American Hospital of Cannes to aid people unable to pay for an ambulance, the Corps had dwindled in the last few months from the original 300 members to barely a dozen. In the World War, Mr. Hurlbut left college to drive an ambulance and, during his two years of service in France, was twice decorated with the Croix de Guerre, the second time by General Petain.
"The food situation in France is becoming worse every day," Mr. Hurlbut reports. "I never did expect to see the day when I would not have enough bread to eat but such was the case. There is so little of other things one eats more bread than in ordinary times We got less than a quarter of a pound of butter per month Lived almost entirely upon vegetables but they were expensive and not too good and not very satisfying without butter or pork fat. There were no potatoes whatever. At first there were a few chickens, now they have all been killed off for lack of grain to feed them. If one could find a rabbit he was lucky. I once saw two women in the market each grab the leg of a rabbit and hang on until they pulled it apart. One could get horse meat only on rationing cards Possession of an egg caused as much excitement as winning a lottery
The thirty-page food restrictions were so complicated one never knew which way to turn and they changed from month to month, week to week, and sometimes from day to day."
With the French people's undernourished condition and resulting hopeless apathy that has bred a feeling o£ "Que faire?" the Hurlbuts reports that the only hope for France is in the "V for Victory" drive begun there five or six months ago. It shows that some spirit still lives. They are doing their best to start trouble for the Nazis. There is great opposition to Vichy but the payment is too heavy and the physical hunger too great. Despite the "near famine" which they describe, the Hurlbuts are against the sending of food to France. The Red Cross shipments arrive untouched, they explain, but the Germans and Italians remove from the country a corresponding amount to keep the French starved into submission.
