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Chapter Two "I will have to hang myself now-life has become simply impossible": Living Conditions during "Reconstruction" Mariia S. Zhak, 44 years old at the time, returned to Rostov from evacuation with her husband and young son in October 1945 after a four-year absence. A major fire had destroyed the tram park and there was no transportation, so they walked from the train station to a relative's apartment near the city's center. "As we went along Engels Street," she recalled, "the sight of destruction and burned out buildings in our home (rodnoi) town was so distressing that I cried nearly the whole way."1 An estimated three-quarters of the housing had been destroyed or severely damaged in a city full of single mothers, demobilized troops, orphans, wounded war veterans, and displaced people, as the war took a devastating toll in material and demographic terms. As noted, in the Soviet Union as a whole, as many as 26.6 million people perished and the war destroyed cities and villages throughout the country2 Survivors returning from evacuation or the front found an entirely different landscape than the one they had left behind. Instead of the improvements they expected and wanted, Soviet citizens faced famine and a continuation of the wartime economy for over two years. Fear of crime plagued society during these years as well. The situation eventually did improve and people did put the pieces back together again, but not without tremendous challenges, difficulties , and problems. Zhak and others remembered the words, "We will rebuild you our beloved Rostov!" painted on the wall of a burned out downtown building. "Indeed," she said, "we did, but that was one of the hardest times in my life.,,3 This chapter examines varying perceptions and representations of material conditions during"reconstruction" by analyzing several different source bases (or levels of discourse): the local party press; internal/closed party materials , including informant reports and lists of questions posed by workers and 1 Mariia S. Zhak, unpublished memoir. 2 Andreev, Naseiellie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 73. 3 Interview by author, 3 June 1995. Mariia Zhak was born in 1901. Svetlana S. Semenova also remembers the sign painted on the wall (My vozrodim tcbia rod,wi Rostov). Interview by author, 16 April 1995. "I W ILL HAVE TO HANG MYSELF NOW..." 41 others at open meetings with party representatives; and interviews and memoir accounts. The postwar years were very difficult throughout war-torn Eurasia. Most of Japan's major cities, including the capital Tokyo and the economic center Osaka, were scorched, and much of the country's urban populace lived in temporary shelters and dugouts at the end of the war. Approximately two million Japanese lost their lives in the conflict, a majority of whom were young men, creating a gender imbalance in society4 In Europe several major cities were severely damaged, among them Berlin (and numerous other German cities), Rotterdam, Warsaw, and many more5 After the war the threat of famine haunted the devastated countries of Eurasia. In April 1946, US President Harry Truman asked Americans to reduce their intake of food in order to stave off the starvation of millions in the "greatest threat of mass starvation in the history of mankind.,,6 At Truman's behest former President Herbert Hoover, who had played such a pivotal role in Red Cross famine relief efforts in the USSR in the early 1920s, traveled to more than 25 countries. Afterward Hoover said, "I have seen with my own eyes the grimmest specter of famine in all the history of the world," calling aid relief "part of the moral and spiritual reconstruction of the world. Hunger," he added, "hangs over the homes of more than 800,000,000 people-over one-third of the people of the earth."7 Given this bleak scenario, rationing of key items remained in effect for years after the war in some countries. Britain, which was in a comparatively favorable position with regard to food supplies, maintained rationing of many items until the early 1950s, and the regulation of consumption became a 4 See Dower, Embracing Defeat; Carola Hein, "Rebuilding Japanese Cities after 1945," in Rebuilding Urban Japan After 1945, ed. Carola Hein, Jeffry M. Diefendorf, and Ishida Yorifusa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 2-3. She adds that it was not until the beginning of the Korean War in 1950 that the Japanese economy really started to recover ; the direct US occupation ended in 1952, and in 1955 the...

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