The Second World War painfully affected the British colonies in India. Kolkata was repeatedly bombed by the Japanese air force. The war-induced famine claimed two to three million immediate victims (death by starvation and diseases from malnutrition) between 1942 and 43, and millions of people fell – due to wartime inflation – below the poverty line. In April 1942, the British army requisitioned Mother Teresa's school in Kolkata as a military hospital, and all the sisters and students had to leave. Mother Teresa managed to rent makeshift spaces when she was just over thirty years old...
At that time, our financial conditions were very poor, and the Loreto sisters took care of us. We were dependent on them. Mother helped us with our education and did many things for the girls. She rented a building that had four rooms and a hall. We stayed there all day, washed ourselves, studied...
During the Second World War, there was no teacher to teach grades four to ten. Mother took all the classes and employed us to forget about our fear and overcome it.
One day we had no food. At eight o'clock, Mother said: I'm going out, children, you stay in the chapel and pray. By four in the afternoon, the pantry was full of various vegetables. We could not believe our eyes.
(Mother Teresa /1910–1997/ in the memories of the sisters and students of the school in Kolkata, Second World War;
quoted from the book Come, Be My Light; KNA 2008)
