Thinking of Food

As far as I know, no one ever tried to escape from the Bergen Belsen concentration camp. We inmates were in a hypnotized, brainwashed, living-dead condition. In our restricted, dark world, the most we could think of was food.

A normal lifestyle? To think freely with a longing to live? At this stage of our existence none of this penetrated our minds. This was the natural outcome our being oppressed and persecuted, going about in constant starvation, in the shadow of death, adjacent to a crematorium, under the influence of the bromide drug mixed in our food.

Even the meager provision given to us by the Nazis became much less after passing through the hands of the Jewish barrack leaders, who tithed the portions! Our own Jewish leaders walked about in their tight-fitting clothes on their fleshy bodies, while the nonentity poor population, skin-to-the-bone thin, had clothing just hanging on loosely.

Breakfast? We never had any. As for our lunch, a few tiny pieces of cooked cattle beets swimming in a dirty liquid, mixed with bromide, distributed to us almost every day - but never at the same hour. In fact, any hour during a circle of one day, but never within the twenty-four period, always later. One day it may have been ten in the morning. The next day, two in the afternoon, then a day and a half later at midnight or maybe three in the morning. Very seldom we received a liquid cooked in breadcrumbs instead of "black-coffee".

We received dark bread which also had bromide mixed in. Our bread portion came to one full slice per day, if only they would give it to us on time each day. When we received our ration, our leaders told us that it would have to last for three days. Usually, however, more than three days elapsed before we received our next ration.

Another problem with this system was that living in starvation, not everyone could control their rumbling stomach, and some would eat up their "three-day" portion the moment they received it. Then it was very terrible for them to wait till the next bread distribution.

In addition, a few people would go from one barrack to another trying to trade their meager bread-portion for a cigarette. On two different occasions, the Nazis distributed four cigarettes to inmates from the age 21 and up. Unfortunately those desperate to smoke cigarettes found some heartless folks ready to exchange their cigarette for bread.

© David Muskal, 2001