MovieChat Forums > The Train (1965) Discussion > 'Soup - Cabbage and Potatoes'

'Soup - Cabbage and Potatoes'

posted 12 years ago by Florida2
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That scene always gives me a chill...

That's what life in occupied Europe was about in those days and that simple meal was probably considered a luxury - if they were fortunate enough to have basic food items, that is, similar to what's going on in Syria today...

Many civilians starved during that time due to a complete breakdown of essential services, including shipments of food - as history showed, the Nazis always managed to put themselves first when it came to essential services and it angers me to no end that many dumb groups in today's world are arrogant enough to believe that none of that happened - it did...

Today we complain if Chili's doesn't bring out our order in less than 10 minutes and complain if we don't have enough catsup - during the war they were fortunate to have food at all and likely considered cabbage and potatoes a feast - something to consider...

[–] Florida2 12 years ago

I think any Gen-X person who doubts just how bad the Nazi's were (or have the gall to imitate them today) should see this film - and the final scene - to see just how evil they were....

They held back nothing to kill or destroy whomever they thought to be a hindrance to them...

On a Sunday in 1962 my late sister and I happened to have an encounter with a woman in her early 20s who with her parents had either escaped or had been released from a concentration camp (she had the serial number tatooed to her wrist - how we happened to see it was a scene from this film, with her staring at us while we were staring at her wrist, but none of us wanting to tell anyone what we saw, because in the early 1960's survivors didn't want to talk too much about what had happened, similar to the scene in Miracle on 34th Street at the little orphan Dutch girl who's parents were apparently killed in Rotterdam) - until 1989, I considered the young woman we met to be the saddest person I had ever encountered in my lifetime - no doubt she witnessed some terrible things that probably never left her mind...

It gets under my skin that many today doubt what happened - incredible, but this film does help in some way to reinforce history - at best, it was a bleak time for the world...

Glades2

[–] the_la_baker 10 years ago

Don't forget people were donating every piece of usable metal they had to be used for the war effort. Not only were circumstances grim, but people's dedication to the cause was so intense(as shown in this film) they gave up every luxury and many necessities in order to "do their part".
Nowadays people are content with slapping a "support our troops" magnet(not even a flipp'n sticker, they don't want to ruin their paint once the fad goes away and they remove their conformist flare) on their vehicle.
I remember my grandmother would cringe whenever we used aluminum foil because she remembered how valuable all metals were during the war. It was ingrained in her psyche and even though we weren't at war, or needing extra scrap metal, she still felt it was irresponsible.