Craving Cattle Beets

Some lucky inmates worked in the big kitchen premises, but were watched carefully by armed Nazi guards standing behind them. When the big gate opened, food carriers brought our "d'orge-mu'se" lunch in huge pots. The gate remained open when the food carriers returned the empty pots. With the Nazis keeping a watchful eye, no one "picked up" forbidden cattle-beets or any other kind of raw vegetable from the kitchen.

With hungry eyes, I watched those food carriers eating their stolen cattle-beets. So I begged my brother Bela, who was a food carrier, to bring us some cattle beets too. Sure enough, he brought us a nice fresh piece of raw cattle-beets the next day. But before I had a chance to enjoy a few bites, together with my sister and brother Bandi, my dear mother came over and yelled out of fear at my brother Bela, demanding that he get rid of the cattle-beets right away. And so he did, by putting them down inside the cement washroom floor. I was very disappointed, stiffened from anger - how could my mother do this? But she was simply that we would be shot for stealing cattle-beets from the kitchen! All the while, some lucky people around us heartily ate their stolen cattle-beets.

I then decided to handle things myself, whatever little chance there may be. I would have to look out very carefully, avoiding being noticed by the SS Nazi guards waiting for a chance to shoot me to death. For hours, I would walk outside the courtyard, waiting for a chance to get something to eat. On one occasion, I noticed some inmate girls digging out cattle-beets and throwing them to a begging multitude of people. These brave girls withstood the cruel lashes of the kapo hitting them again and again, and threw the life-saving cattle-beets over the barbed-wire fence. As the beets flew over to our side of the fence, all of us rushed to catch them. I must say, there was no fighting. Whoever was lucky enough to catch a cattle-beet took it and had to disappear, so as to give others a chance. But this soon ended too, and we had to look for other ways to appease our perpetual hunger.

Early one day, just after roll call, all of us were escorted by the Nazi guards to take a shower. They took us past block ten, by the left side of the gate - on the other side, freedom. Oh, how I longed to walk out, to be free, to escape the dark horror of Bergen-Belsen! Now my rumbling stomach demanded food. The scant food provision given to us by the German authorities served to slowly and systematically lead us to perish from starvation.

I found a trifling new source to obtain some food. I volunteered to return empty cans to the kitchen instead of my brother, Bela. But rarely did I have any luck. The SS guard, with his gun ready to shoot, always stood by. I remember two lucky occasions when I did manage to get food. Once, a girl sat beside a huge pot cleaning small carrots - provisions for the SS gang - with the guard next to her. I just stared at this girl with my hungry, begging eyes; she, too, gave an agreeable look and allowed me to grab a few small carrots from the pot. I dared not put my hand back a second time. The other time, I was lucky enough to grab a few pieces of very small red beets. Both times, I shared the treasure not only with my own family of five, but also with a "neighbor". I remember his name - Mr. Gorog. He was a fine young man who was later sent to another barrack, and we never saw him again.

When I say a neighbor in Bergen-Belsen, that could mean either twenty centimeters away from our abode - our bunk beds - or someone separated just by a wooden plank about twenty centimeters high.

Rarely, we found in our "dorge-muse" liquid tiny pieces of white meat - some dared to say it was human meat, because it was unimaginable that the Nazis would feed us with any other, "normal", kind of meat.

© David Muskal, 2001