Sewing in exchange for food

Work camp Gleiwitz, Camp for forced labor
november-december 1942

Our first shock, that we would die of hunger, was not true in my case, for I got food from the guards.

The food in the camps was already insufficient in 1940. In the following years the meals became increasingly meager and the quality also diminished.

In the morning there was a thin milk soup or so-called coffee, in the afternoon there was a thin turnip soup with very little fat. Some prisoners got a slice of bread with something on it as a bonus for the heavy labor.

In the evening the bread rations for the next day were distributed with some margarine, cheese, or marmalade. Because of the poor nutrition, anyone who didn’t manage to get food in another way started in a short time to become a weakened, apathetic “Musulman”, as the SS called them jeeringly.