EUROPE: Troubled Resurrection

What if a few hundred thousand men huddled together in a small corner of the world had done their utmost to disfigure it . . . so that no green thing, not even a blade of grass could grow; had . . . trimmed all the trees and driven away every animal and every bird—in spite of all, spring was still spring in every town. . . . The birches, the wild cherry trees and the poplars unfolded their gummy and fragrant leaves, the bursting buds of the lindens expanded, the jackdaws, the sparrows and the pigeons were busy and joyous over their nests. . . . Plants, birds, insects and children rejoiced. But man, mature man, ceased not to cheat and to harass himself and his fellowmen.—Leo Tolstoy in “Resurrection.”

Everywhere in Europe, seed came alive, but Europe had reason to wonder whether the seed of its own old civilization was still viable.

Hate & Hunger. The city fathers of Tegelen, Holland, considered this spring of 1946, decided that it was not a season for rejoicing; they abolished the annual spring carnival. At Berchtesgaden, a crocus was pushing up through the ruins of Adolf Hitler’s villa. Also pushing their way to light were weeds of old hatred; in Vienna, where a Jewish soccer team played a Gentile eleven, crowds suddenly rioted and yelled: “Into the gas with them! Into the gas!” Further south, along the thawing Danube, in Budapest, gypsies who had survived the Nazi purges again fiddled in the cafes (one of their songs: “Give my regards to lovely old Vienna. . . .”) and bitter memories welled up with the execution of pro-Nazi ex-Premier Ferenc Szalasi and three of his ministers (see cut).

In Berlin, dress designers put on a fashion show, complete with crazy spring hats. Wrote the Socialist paper Das Volk: “One year ago . . . sirens used to scream and bombs brought death. . . . Now it is over. . . . Reconstruction work in our destroyed Germany will advance.”

Duisburg, the great inland port at the confluence of Rhine and Ruhr, had lost a third of its workers to hunger, disease and fatigue. A correspondent reported: “Four [nearby] brothels thoughtfully provided by the Nazis for [the workers’] diversion are still open, but queues are missing.”

Rain & Reconstruction. In Rome, people walked to the banks of the Tiber—not, as in the past, to watch for blossoms in the orange and lemon trees, but to see whether the river level was rising; for Italy was parched by its worst drought in two centuries. Heavy gusts of spring rain finally swelled the river, and softened the brittle earth to the seed.

In Artena, the citizens put on their shabby Sunday best despite the rain and solemnly went to the polls. In the middle of the main street, painted in huge letters on the rough pavement, was the message: “Vote for the American Republic—Viva VAmerica.” A peasant swung his oxcart violently to one side. Said he: “We don’t want these wheels going over those words.” The wheels of his cart had been salvaged from a German gun carriage.

In Valmontone, sheep wandered into the shattered houses on the hillside, munching grass that grew on the damp floors. Down in the narrow plain at the foot of the hill, men, women & children were hard at work building a new Valmontone. Only the very young had time to run about and play in the warm rain. Said the old woman who watched them: “They had to learn to walk sooner than most. It was hard for the women to carry them.”

Escape & Flight. To Paris, spring came like the whiff of a frivolous perfume among the sour scents of poverty and sorrow. In the Jardin du Luxembourg, deep pink flowers grew, as they did every year, straight from the bark of two gnarled trees near the statue of Henri Murger. The Paris birth rate was up to 50% over 1944; but infant mortality had risen as high. In front of the pet shops at the Pont de 1’Alma, cages again held a few boisterous birds, and the bouquinistes along the Right Bank were opening for business. Little girls in white tulle veils climbed up the steps of Sacre Coeur for their first communion. At Harry’s, in the Rue Daunou, a corporal’s guard of left-over G.I.s still sipped watery beer.

On the Riviera, amidst the wreckage of a past era, people drank champagne, watched Mistinguett high-kick her timeless legs. But from the dry and dusty ranges of Provence to the cool pastures of Normandy, peasants labored with insufficient help and tools. In Beauce, green, stunted wheat starved for fertilizer. Every day more & more stay-at-home Frenchmen applied for visas to leave the country.

Moscow last week reported its first starling. Three she-bears in the zoo ventured out of their dens. On sunny days, Muscovites stood chatting around the morozhenoie telezhki (ice cream carts), forgetful of the slush in the streets. But spring also meant that the snow was melting in the Turkish passes and reminded worriers that Russia might still seek brutally for more fruits of victory.

In Agrinion, Greece, homeless children laughed happily, in the midst of strife and desolation, over Red Cross packages containing such rare luxuries as marbles, dolls and soap (see cut).

Cuckoos & Queues. In Britain, Miss J. T. Vyvyan-Robinson of Liss, Hants, reported hearing the year’s first cuckoo, a fact faithfully recorded by the London Times. Britons were ready for the peculiar and breath-taking magic of a British spring—for the golden king-cups opening in the marshes and cowslips in the meadows, for lacelike kex smothering the hedges, for bluebells and primroses in the woods.

Men spaded gardens in the evenings, prewar sweaters slung around their shoulders, and in the sooty cities women bought jonquils at 2/6 a bunch (before the war, they had been only tuppence). Bertram Mill’s Circus announced it would go on the road for the first time since 1940.

But want and worry still gripped Britain. Editorialized the Sunday Observer: “Our highest ambition is to have just enough clothes to keep alive while queueing in the slush for frozen cod or wondering whether the yellowness in the gas fire is indeed a flame or merely rust. So spring returns.” The Times received extra paper to print a four-page supplement containing belated casualty lists.

Hopes & Fears. Everywhere, the people wearily submitted to the bittersweet delights of spring. Old ones sat in the sun and peacefully closed their eyes, though they knew that they would have little peace for the balance of their lives. Young men back from prison camps went strolling with their girls. Everywhere, people crowded into battered churches for Lenten services. Outside the churches, too, they were searching for a faith—or at least for a reason—and they were caught between two great ideological glaciers. From the West came the faith of freedom to match the season’s bright hopes; from the East came the faith of security, to serve the season’s gloomy fears. Europe’s troubled and uncertain resurrection pushed up tentatively from the blasted earth.