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of the things that they thought they had to bring from America, because the Belgians had had them hidden away.

Except food. They'd had them hidden away. They were very, very short of food. But even so, they were raising it like nothing at all. They had planted their gardens before the Germans were out of the country. I said to M. Van Zeeland, “How is it? How is it possible?”

He shrugged his shoulders. He said, “Well, in Belgium we have been invaded many times. And it is an old saying in Belgium: ‘In Belgium, every man must do what he can where he is.’”

Well, I'd heard that phrase. I knew it was an old saying, because I heard it from Paul Van Zeeland, I heard-it from Huysmans, I heard it from martens, I heard it from laborers building a shed in Ostend for the fishing fleet to come in and put their dumps out, I heard it from men on the railway platform-- I heard it from everybody. I heard it even from the old mayor of Liege, who was an odd picture. That was where I saw him. They all said the same thing: “In Belgium, every man must do what he can where he is.”

So, by not having it all centralized, and a directive civil defense--every man used his own brains and did what he thought best, and put things away. Oh yes, the mayor of the University of Louvain said the same thing to me. I met him one Sunday at the Baroness Boel's, and he said the same thing.