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Hunger
The testimony of Ruth
Brand, born in Hungary and deported to Auschwitz in 1944, at the age
of 16.
… Before we were given a
cupful of coffee, so-called coffee; it was burned barley, cooked. This
we were given for breakfast. For lunch, the soup, the soup that is so
hated, and we really wanted another even one more bite…. By this time,
it was brought to us to the work place and dished out and by this
time, each one of us had a cup that we tied around our waist with a
piece of rope that we found somehow. And that
was our lunch. And in the evening we were given our portion of bread
when we came back to the camp, we were given a portion of bread that
was approximately the size of two slices of bread. Well, we were very
hungry. We were so hungry that some of the girls would hide half of it
under their head for the next morning. Of course, we had no pillows,
but one that was even more hungry would steal it. And that's
understandable too. But I found the best solution: I ate it up the
moment I got it – finished, no problems. And
this was our food, if you can call it that. Of course we got very
skinny.
Ruth Brand, testimony
given at a seminar held at Yad Vashem, 1996.
This Testimony appears in “Eclipse of Humanity” Yad Vashem’s
multimedia program on the Holocaust. For more information,
click here. |
