Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

The CRB used monetary donations from the Allied governments to buy foodstuffs on the global market, ship them to Belgium, and distribute them to Belgian communal authorities, who then sold most of them to local shops, which in turn sold them to the customers who were still liquid enough to buy stuff under German occupation. The remainder went to canteens for the destitute. As before, Hoover’s team worked hard to maintain functioning markets above all—and with them a class structure—in the face of leveling catastrophe.