Unless you have experienced real hunger for a prolonged period I think it's impossible to imagine the importance of the arrival Red Cross parcels to the POWSs. The contents of course vital for health but also bringing a sense of not being forgotten.
The following from Wikipedia :
Red Cross parcel refers to packages containing mostly food, tobacco and personal hygiene items sent by the International Association of the Red Cross to prisoners of war during the First and Second World Wars,[1] as well as at other times. It can also refer to medical parcels and so-called "release parcels" provided during World War II. The Red Cross arranged them in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1929. During World War II these packages augmented the often-meager and deficient diets in the PoW camps, contributing greatly to prisoner survival and an increase in morale
Parcels to allied prisoners came from three main countries but were distributed and received according to logistical and practical factors not according to origin of prisoners receiving them.
On the following pages some labels which may well seem somewhat mundane items by todays standards but were almost certainly seen as luxuries given the context and staple POW diet.
As the war drew to a close and German infrastructure collapsed the delivery of parcels would have come to a halt in the part of Germany where Dad finished his POW days. Food of any kind for anyone would have been scant and I doubt that the POWs diet would have been high on the list of concerns for what was left of the German state.
German soup consisting of little more than vegetable ( rotten vegetable and peelings at that ) water being a staple as the war drew to a close.
English + Canadian Red X Parcel Contents
American Red X Parcel Contents
