Housing and material wealth keeps coming up but we’ve survived and thrived after a good chunk of Europe was razed, critical infrastructure missing and entire co

Housing and material wealth keeps coming up but we’ve survived and thrived after a good chunk of Europe was razed, critical infrastructure missing and entire countries needing to be rebuilt. Peoples wants and needs weren’t that different from ours, we just have more of them, but we desire them as much as any period of time before us. We don’t, unfortunately, have many first hand accounts of how people survived during these times. I do remember a poignant scene in Saving Private Ryan as Tom Hanks and the squad are moving through a shelled European city. I think it’s in France, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen the film. In that scene they come across a mother and daughter living in an apartment, with no real hope of a better life as most of the city has been bombed. They invite themselves in for tea. A young Private catches the eye of the daughter, and vice versa. Tom Hanks, the mother, and rest of the squad pretend that they’re having tea and talking and laughing while the two young people go to a different room (subtext being to have a discussion of their own). Tom Hanks looks at the mother and gives her a warm smile. Everyone has a stupid-grin look on their face, acting ignorant. The scene, out of place though it may be, acknowledges the needs of young people, and that older generations sometimes literally have to play a part, and move out of the way and let the young people do what they desire to do and to not strip them of or take away their opportunities.