"I haven't forgotten history," says Gert Heinz, a tax adviser in Munich. "If you depend on paper money you can lose everything. We've learned that the hard way after two world wars."

So when Chancellor Angela Merkel went on television recently to tell Germans that their bank accounts were safe, Heinz, who at 68 still remembers the rows of canned food that his mother hoarded in the attic, decided he would rather be safe than sorry.

He converted another chunk of his savings into gold and stocked up on a six-month supply of rice, sugar, flour and a special brand of milk powder that lasts for half a century.

Heinz may be an extreme example, but he is not alone among Europeans who are looking for ways to protect themselves in the face of a financial storm that - at least so far - has affected them much less directly than it has many Americans. Indeed, his reaction reflects the history of a Continent that has weathered wars, revolutions and financial crises over the centuries, burnishing national convictions that are very different from those in the United States.

In America, wealth and retirement savings are much more tied up in the stock market, with a majority of people owning at least a modest stake. By contrast, only 13 percent of German households and 24 percent of French ones own shares, according to 2006 figures compiled by the European Savings Institute. Pensions are still largely state-driven, not 401(k)-style investment accounts. Even for the British, who look more like Americans in terms of their credit card debt and mortgage exposure, the share of those who have invested in the market is only about 20 percent.

There is a long tradition of burying treasures in troubled times. Today, tales of people taking money out of banks to keep it somewhere else are circulating in Paris bistros and London pubs. Companies selling or renting safes are reporting an increase in demand, though hard numbers are difficult to establish.

"History matters. In times of crisis you really get to know a country and its people," said Toni Pierenkemper, a professor of economic history at Cologne University. "Traumatic events are seared into the collective consciousness and often survive into the next generations."

Germany, where many people lost their savings twice in the 20th century, is one of the richest laboratories of European historical scars - welds that help explain the country's fears of inflation and its interest in maintaining a complex public-private banking system.

The network of 446 publicly owned savings banks, which have been guaranteeing their deposits for three decades, have proved popular in recent weeks as nervous Germans moved part of their savings onto their books.

Even more striking, a sudden surge in the demand for gold has led several Internet sites and gold vendors to temporarily shut down their sales operations.

"I've never seen anything like this. We're basically sold out until the end of the year," said Robert Hartmann, co-founder of ProAurum, a gold vendor based in Munich. Despite the shortages, about 200 customers line up at his counter every day, he said, asking for coins and bars, not certificates. According to his estimates, "only about 5 percent of German investors" are interested in converting a small part of their savings to gold "but it's enough to put suppliers under strain."

Heinz, the financial adviser, started diversifying his investments in the run-up to the 1992 recession. He has bought land and gradually built up a stock of gold, which he buys in small units suitable as emergency payment and keeps in a safe in a specialized company.

He still remembers the stories his grandfather told of a suitcase full of bank notes buying no more than a loaf of bread during hyperinflation in 1923 Germany. He also remembers the currency changes of 1948 that again wiped out savings.

Some of his clients share his fears.

He tells of one who dropped a vacuum-sealed sack filled with gold and silver to the bed of a lake, in case the government were to levy an additional tax on wealth or try to ban households from owning gold. Another has buried his riches in a forest. All of them think that it is just a matter of time until another wave of inflation erodes the value of money.

In France, gold sales have also increased but people are more trusting of the government.

The entire French banking system was state-owned as recently as 1987 and the state has played a prominent role in the economy dating to the days of Louis XIV.

In contrast to the unease and suspicion among most Americans about the government taking stakes in distressed financial institutions, many people in France feel comforted - even vindicated - in their belief that the state has a responsibility to look after the economy.

"We nationalize, we denationalize and we re-nationalize. That's the way it goes in France," quipped Bernard Candiard, director-general of Crédit Municipal de Paris, a 231-year-old pawnshop that is doing brisk business these days and is, yes, a state monopoly.

"Today we are again in the process of nationalizing banks," Candiard said. "It's a sign to the people. The government wants to give them confidence. And confidence in France is the state. We have a different tradition from America."

In Eastern Europe, where people were hardened by modest living standards under communism, the trust in government is more limited.

In Bulgaria, for example, more people are looking at moving their money to West European banks that offer an unlimited deposit guarantee, said Adriana Alexandrova, a financial executive at the TV2 television station in Sofia.

"There is a great lack of confidence in the banks and in the government," said Alexandrova, whose parents had to close down their pharmacy business after several Bulgarian banks collapsed in the mid-1990s. "Several of my friends have moved their money to safes."

The phrase "he likes gardening" has a double meaning in Bulgaria, she added. "Under communism it mainly meant people preparing jars of pickled vegetables to get them through the winter. These days, it mainly means someone is hiding money in their garden or under their pillow."

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Gert Heinz reacted to the financial crisis by converting some of his savings into gold and by stocking up on staple foods.