After the landing of the Allied Forces on D-Day, things grew worse in Holland. Over the Hongerwinter (Hunger winter), as the Netherlands became one of the main western battlefields, a number of factors combined to starve the Dutch people - the winter itself was unusually harsh and together with the widespread dislocation and destruction of the war, the retreating German army destroyed locks and bridges to flood the country and impede the Allied advance, this ruined much agricultural land and made the transport of existing food stocks difficult. From September 1944 until early 1945 around 30,000 Dutch people starved to death.
One person caught up in the famine was Audrey Hepburn, who suffered from ill-health for the rest of her life due to the results of malnutrition.