Food had become the major preoccupation for the inhabitants of the ghetto Most of the ghetto dwellers spent a great part of the day in lines — lines for soups, lines for bread, lines for potatoes, groceries, coal, wood and other necessities. As far as I remember, I was generally spared this chore for about the first two and a half years of the war.
In the beginning, my father and my brothers were the major providers of food. They were the ones who risked their lives to get to bread lines during curfew hours, to stand for long hours and finally, to be recognized as Jews and to be thrown out of the lines empty-handed. At times, they succeeded, however, in getting one or two loaves of bread. My mother occasionally borrowed our neighbor’s baby, for whom she often baby-sat, and in well-spoken German appealed to the officer in charge of the line to have pity on her hungry child. Several times that stratagem helped her in getting bread — without struggling for hours in bread lines.
I often pleaded with my mother to allow me to attempt standing in bread lines too, but she thought that it was too dangerous for me. Eventually, one morning, my mother woke me up, and I joined my father and brothers in an unsuccessful bread line adventure. But after that frightening attempt, I decided to leave that chore to the others in my family. My brothers thought that my whole attitude that early morning was funny.
I was still only half awake, when after being shaken repeatedly, I had at last been awakened from deep sleep. Though I was walking, I could scarcely talk. When I met a cat in the hallway, I thought that it was a rat and was about to let out a big scream. When we walked in the dark of the night through the empty streets, and later, when we stood in line, I was shaking like a leaf, constantly holding on to father or one of my brothers for protection, and continuously pulling their arrns When it was announced that there was no more bread in the bakery, I began to cry This was my brothers’ version of the only time I attempted to help get food. I must admit that their account of my adventure was quite accurate.
Although, for a while, it was quite rewarding for Elek to substitute for those who were called for Zwangsarbeit, it did not last very long after father’s death. As previously mentioned, Shimon did not succeed in his slave labor endeavors.
After the ghetto was formed, “cooperative food stores” were organized and bread was distributed more regularly — a weekly allowance of 2 kilograms of bread per person. The bread, made mainly from chestnut flour, tasted like clay. Because we often had to wait for the arrival of promised foods to be distributed, bread was usually the only food for the day. We would eagerly chew on the bread, but still remained unsatisfied. Though a person ate more bread per day than the whole family consumed prior to the war, we were always hungry. The bread intake did not satisfy our need for food — obviously because we were lacking other nutrients (fats, vegetables, meat, dairy, glucose, vitamins and minerals) that were necessary for our physical and mental development, and well being.
One day, my mother stated that from that day onward, every family member in our household would receive his or her own loaf of bread allowance for the week, and be responsible for disciplining oneself in dividing and consuming the bread ration. She insisted, however, that since Elek, was rapidly growing and was the main breadwinner in our household, everyone else among us would cut off part of one’s bread ration as a bonus for him. Dividing bread was not unusual among the ghetto dwellers, especially among those whose family members were unable to control their appetites and wound up overindulging in the consumption of food at the expense of others in the family. But we were caught by surprise, because my mother used to say until then that in our home we would not carry on antisocial behavior that was not befitting a decent family. I do not know what exactly prompted her to make that move.
The responsibility of dividing the bread and distributing it through the week was a most difficult task and very hard for me to cope with. After Elek’s bonus portion was taken off my loaf of bread, I would divide the remaining bread into seven approximately equal portions, but the portion for that day disappeared within minutes. I was too hungry to wait any longer. I put the other six portions in the credenza. As the evening approached, I decided to cut off very, very thin slices from each of the portions that I put aside for the following six days. Normally, I would not stop there and kept on cutting off tiny bits of bread from each portion. If my mother noticed it, she would good-humoredly ask me whether I was stealing bread from myself. I felt very guilty about it, but not for too long. My stomach was gnawing and was giving me different instructions.
My daily bread allowance shrunk by the day and on the third or fourth day, I was left completely without any bread for the rest of the week. Most of the time, my mother would stop me on the way out “after breakfast” and would ask me why I wasn’t eating anything before leaving the house. I was very embarrassed and lied to her: “I just ate! Didn’t you see me eat?”
My mother denied having seen me eat and suggested that she should lend me, “only lend me,” a slice of bread and that when we received our next bread allowance, I would repay her. I did not want to eat my mother’s bread, but I could not resist the temptation of getting something into my stomach. When the following bread allocation arrived, I paid my mother back the bread I owed her and started off with less than before. So, the cycle of paying back and borrowing bread went on and on.
Since my grandmother had grown up on a farm in a tiny settlement near Dzialoszyce, south of Kielce, she had learned a lot about mushrooms, plants and weeds. In the beginning, at her initiative, we gathered and utilized weeds in our daily diet. Most frequently, we used the weed that she called Yarmuzhke (a weed resembling the leaf of the Chrysanthemum).
Yarmuzhke could easily be found in the fields on the outskirts of the city and also in backyards. Buba advised that “the weed was poisonous, but only if the white is used for cooking.” So, it was necessary to snip off the poisonous inner part from the plant. Then our hands as well as the plants were thoroughly washed. After that procedure, it was necessary to separate the leaves from the bough, and when these leaves were washed well, we would chop them up for fried vegetable burgers or cook them over the stove as a borsht or spinach substitute. I do not know what it would taste like if I ate it now, but during the war we thought that it was a delicious food. Eventually, either because other hungry people caught on to it as well, or because the harsh winter set in and weeds did not grow well, our consumption of Yarmuzhke soon came to an end.
Kohlrabi had become a popular food. Prior to the war, this vegetable was used in Poland only for cattle feed. During the war, kohlrabi became available on the ration cards. Elek sometimes brought home additional amounts. He claimed to be watching vegetable trucks go by, and whenever a Kohlrabi fell off the trucks he would be there ready to pick it up. I was under the impression that Elek was stealing food from wagons and from vegetable warehouses. We ate the kohlrabi — cooked, as a dessert, fried or raw — for breakfast, lunch and supper, and between meals. I promised myself then that if I survived the war, I would never taste or look at that vegetable again — but during the war, I devoured it eagerly.
After soup kitchens were organized, we were able to get some soup tickets in the communal kitchen on Lutomierska 2 as the family of a textile worker. When the second Bundist kitchen opened up on Brzezinska 59, my mother occasionally worked there — peeling potatoes, carrots and other vegetables. On the days that she worked, she would eat in the kitchen without using her ration coupons, and was able to get some soup tickets for the other members of our family. But in about August of 1941, Rumkowski permanently closed the Bund-kitchens — which supplied thousands of free soups daily to the unemployed workers of the ghetto.
Hunger and death from malnutrition and frost rapidly grew during the bitter cold winter of 1941-42. Soon, only those who were working for the government were able to get soup from the factory soup kitchens. In the new soup kitchens, there was greater inequality — both in the amount and quality of soup that was received The common folk would get a little thin soup from the top of the pot, whereas the more privileged would get soup from the bottom of the vessel. The soup distributors were considered to be among the most prestigious persons in the Ghetto.
We were hungry! Potatoes were rotting away on the Balucki Square, at the ghetto food warehouse, and we were hungry! Khaim Rumkowski and some members of the Yudenrat were coming to visit the hospital patients and staff — perhaps to tell them what a concerned, loving and devoted “father” he was. Rumkowski didn’t have to go far. His main residence was in a suite at the hospital. A children’s demonstration was called for that day to remind our ‘protector’ and the Yudenrat that we, the ghetto children, were hungry. It was a peaceful children’s demonstration in a small narrow street across from the hospital. We were going to request that the rotting potatoes be distributed among the starving people in the ghetto.
Rumkowski and the Yudenrat members did not come out to hear us. Instead, they called in the German authorities. The German Shutz-Polizei (SHUPO) arrived and used their guns to shoot at the child demonstrators. There were three casualties that day. As soon as the shooting began, the leaders of the demonstration advised us to disburse.
By the time the ghetto administration decided to distribute the rotting potatoes among the ghetto inhabitants, the vegetables were frozen too. Of course, the unpleasantly sweet, smelly, frozen and rotted potatoes were dangerous to our health, but we ate them anyway. They were, after all, edible goods and filled our convulsing stomachs. My mother tried to make potato pancakes, tsholnt, kugl and other treats from the rotted frozen potatoes, and we pretended that it was a delicacy. But my stomach could not tolerate these “delicacies”. For the first time during the war, my stomach was full, but I spent the night vomiting, having stomach cramps and diarrhea. I have suffered from abdominal ailments ever since.
At times, sick people, including my mother (who had swollen legs) were fortunate to receive special ration coupons for potato peels from one of the soup kitchens — as per the doctor’s prescription. We used to say that the food received on our ration cards was “nisht tsu lebn un nisht tsu shtarbn (neither enough to live, nor to die).”
(to be continued…)
©2001 Fela Infeld Glaser and Marty Capsuto
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Child In Captivity 