In the 1930s, a Dutch pediatrician named Willem Dicca began to study a mysterious, often fatal

disease that was afflicting his patients.

Children were losing weight and becoming malnourished despite consuming plenty of calories.

The symptoms were intense and widespread.

The damage is in intestine.

Really, this is a systemic disease that does not spare any tissue or any body.

That's a lesio fesano.

I'm Professor Pidiadrix, a mass-genre hospital for children.

Willem Dicca suspected the illness was somehow related to the children's diet, but it wasn't

until years later that he found the proof he was looking for.

It came in the form of a grotesque natural experiment produced by the Second World War.

In 1940, Germany had invaded and occupied the Netherlands.

In 1944, Dutch railway workers held a strike in support of the Allies.

This prompted the Nazis to cut off food shipments to Dutch civilians.

This was called the Hunger Winter.

That's Alan the Vinevitz, a religion scholar at James Madison University.

It was horrific children everywhere, were starving.

Some people resorted to eating grass or tulip bulbs.

Thousands died of starvation.

But Willem Dicca noticed something strange.

His pediatric patients who'd been sick before the war were actually improving.

And then, in 1945, the Hunger Winter ended.

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