I think it would be difficult for any of us to understand what our forefathers went through. They lived in a different time and had many more hardships.
The closest I can come is my maternal grandparents, who lived in Germany during World War II. During the latter years, there was no food to be had. My aunt described to me once how her mother (my grandmother) risked her life to steal food from a military garrison. Others dug up roots from the ground, or (worse) prostituted themselves in order to provide food.

After WWII ended, things did not get better. I have never been told this, but I am fairly sure that my grandfather falsified documents and paid off a few people to get his family out of Germany. Also, it took a lot of money to get to the U.S. after the war, and I know my grandparents were fairly destitute, so who knows where it came from.