Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Regina Cohen - April 18, 1982

Disliking Camp Food

You said for the first three days you didn't eat the bread.

I didn't because I, I've never seen bread like that.

What did you do?

Nothing, because I, I thought, there must be some food coming somewhere, you know, maybe Sunday was coming close, maybe I'll see my family. I, I still thought, it, it wasn't sinking in. I, I still thought uh, you know, uh, things are going to happen, I--this is just momentary. Um, on the third day at line-up, I felt myself going dizzy.

From hunger.

And I couldn't, I couldn't uh, focus. I was falling over. And I uh, couldn't uh, I was very lightheaded, I knew I was going to pass out. And after--I made up my mind outside that "Hey, you better eat no matter what it's like." It taste like sawdust, like uh, compressed sawdust. "You better go in and eat it as bad, as bad as it is." I went in and it, I put it on the tier of--by the head on that tier of the piece of wood--a board, which is supposed to be my headboard. And I looked for it and to my shock, all three pieces had disappeared. Somebody had gotten equally hungry and took my bread.

Oh, after three days of not eating.

Right. Uh, then I had to wait 'til the evening and uh, I welcomed that soup whatever it was. And the piece of bread they gave you. And I ate it all. Because I didn't trust anybody. I thought, "If I put it down again, it's going to be gone." And uh, I don't know if I should say this--some, uh, whether it's uh, right or wrong. I think that all the wrong should be said whether it, it has to do with our people or our enemy.


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