Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Salvatore and Lili Katan - August 18, 1981

Food in Camp

Do you remember how much you weighed at the end of the Holocaust? Did you, did you know how much?

SK: Yeah, I was a hundred, a hundred and forty-eight pounds, hundred and fifty pounds, something like that.

LK: Cannot be.

At the liberation--when you were liberated?

LK: Cannot be, what are you talking? You are talking about pounds? Hundreds.

SK: Oh, hundred and thirty, hundred and thirty-two pounds something like that.

LK: You didn't eat ???

SK: Uh, I used to eat ??? everything what they used to find.

LK: Where did you find it?

SK: Where did I find it? In the garbage, in the garbages.

What kind--what was the diet like? I mean, you must remember.

LK: Food? What was the food?

What was the food like?

LK: Simple to remember. Every night uh, little plate of beet--you know what is beet? Beets ??? this was the food, once a little slice.

Once a week.

LK: Very easy to remember.

Is that the same...

LK: My--I don't know, he was in a different, so I cannot tell you.

Was it the same? The food--the same thing?

SK: The thing was bread.

LK: You had tea?

SK: ??? and that was the tea, because they don't give you coffee over there.

LK: I know.

SK: And the bread was black piece of sliced bread.

Once a day?

SK: Once a day and sometimes not, maybe one potato, two potatoes maybe, it depends.

Was this just for the workers like you or for everybody?

SK: Like everybody, this uh, workers.

LK: Did you get everyday a sliced bread?

SK: Sliced bread...

LK: I'm not joking.

SK: They used to give us sliced bread and sometimes we used to eat a half and the half we used to hide--somebody else used to steal.


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