Food Rationing and Forced Labour

[Text: Lola, a survivor from Kraków, Poland describes food rationing and forced labour in a Buchenwald sub-camp in Leipzig, Germany. Before arriving in Leipzig, Lola was imprisoned in Auschwitz and Ravensbrück.] 

Lola Mendelson: We have everyday a quarter of the bread, but I can explain, the bread was a small bread and this is a quarter, they were already cut like this. A quarter of the bread, dark bread, not very good was very… like glue something, I don’t know. And they gave us coffee, black coffee and a soup, or something like this. The coffee was terrible, I never drink the coffee. And that’s about [it].  

Interviewer: And that’s all you would eat for the whole day? 

Lola Mendelson: This piece of bread had to be enough until the end of the day. 

Interviewer: Would you get another piece of bread at the end of the day? 

Lola Mendelson: No, next morning. 

Interviewer: So you got one meal? 

Lola Mendelson: One meal a day, yeah. 

Interviewer: And how long were the shifts that you worked? 

Lola Mendelson: Twelve. Twelve hour nights and twelve hour days. This was really hard for me. I was sleepy all the time because they wake us up inside about 4 o’clock in the morning, 5 o’clock to be outside and wait for the SS with the guns to come in and march us to the factory. We have to walk. It was not very far, but it was a distance from the place where we were sleeping. So it was really cold while we stay waiting so we just you know… [sound of hands rubbing] when we came in the factory it was warmer so it was better. And back in the evening the same thing. To wait for them to take us back and wait again a few hours outside, they weren’t rushing.