ABSTRACT
After the Varkiza agreement, desperate want and anarchic disorder prevailed in most areas outside the metropolis. 1 The want was gradually alleviated by western aid of many kinds: food, clothing, medical supplies, as well as raw materials and equipment to rebuild houses, reconstruct communications and revive economic activity. The rehabilitation of liberated peoples was a proclaimed Allied war aim for which systematic preparations had been made by the British and American governments. They worked at first through British troops, and then from April 1945 to June 1947 through the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), substantially supplemented by the British army and by voluntary organisations in which American Greeks were especially important. In eighteen months during 1945-46, official aid alone was worth 70 per cent of national income in 1939, and at one point – April 1945 – it provided most of the food consumed in the country. 2 During 1945, the recovery of economic production and living standards was held back by the sheer extent of the destruction and chaos left by the enemy occupation followed by the Dekemvrianâ. To add to these disasters, drought wrecked the grain harvest in 1945.
