CARE Bremen package

After the Second World War, Europe had lost its position as a world centre of power and trade. Following the enormous destruction brought about by the war, Europe depended on outside support. Aid was organised at national and international levels to help those in need. The Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE) was founded in 1945, when 22 American organisations came together to send humanitarian food supplies to Europe’s starving population. The first packages contained US Army ‘10-in-1’ food parcels, initially intended to provide one meal for ten soldiers during the planned invasion of Japan. After Japan’s surrender, the surplus was sent to Europe in the form of CARE packages. On 11 May 1946, the first 15,000 packages reached the port of Le Havre, France. By the end of 1946, CARE was delivering packages to ten countries in Europe. After the US Army supplies ran out, Americans could purchase a CARE package for $10 (the equivalent of around $143 today) to be sent to an individual or family they knew or did not know. The CARE packages typically contained milk powder, rice, cheese, beans, canned meat and sugar, as well as chocolate and coffee, which were considered luxury products at the time. The first CARE packages arrived in the port of Bremen and were distributed in the American occupation zone in August 1946. Until then, an American prohibition on sending CARE packages to occupied Germany had been in place. This was justified by a policy of not improving the German standard of living above the European average. As Red Cross humanitarian aid was also denied to Germany, historians suggest that this was also due to Germans still being considered enemy civilians. CARE slowly wound up their activities in Europe in the 1950s as the continent was recovering. In 1956, CARE distributed food to Hungarian refugees fleeing across the Iron Curtain after the 1956 Budapest uprising. This would be one of the last CARE operations in Europe for many years. -Simina Badica