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ON FOOD AND MORALS IN EXTREMIS
Bozidar Jezernik
Department ofEthnology and Cultural Anthropology
University ofLjubljana
Zavetiska 5, 1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
That humans in situations of extreme privation "live by bread alone" is an

idea enshrined both in ancient proverbial wisdom and in grand theories of
contemporary social science. I base an examination of this idea on material
gathered from research on German, Italian, and Yugoslav concentration
camps during and after World War II. In all of these camps, food deprivation
was one of the main weapons used to control and subjugate the prisoners;
hunger was so extreme that in the worst periods, dying from starvation was
the normal state of existence. The guiding principle of the authorities was
that individuals would do anything to survive; that guided by the basic
instinct for self-preservation, the hungry forget all cultural norms and
standards. In effect, hunger transforms a human being into an "animal." The
concentration camp experience, as reported by survivors, however, refutes
both the autho1ities' own conviction that prisoners would do anything to
survive and the rather similar assertations of theories that hunger is a domin
ant need.
A Latin proverb states, "primum vivere, deinde philosophari," which means
that without bread, there is no philosophy. According to Engels (1950: 153),
Karl Marx was "the greatest living thinker," because he had discovered "the
law of development of human history," which was "that mankind must first
of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics,
science, art, religion, etc." The American psychologist Abraham Maslow,
author of the theory of the hierarchy of needs, took the same line, stating that
"for chronically and extremely hungry man, Utopia can be defined simply as
a place where there is plenty of food." "Life itself tends to be defined in
terms of eating. Anything else will be defined as unimportant. Freedom,
2 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
love, community feeling, respect, philosophy, may all be waved aside as

fripperies that are useless, since they fail to fill the stomach. Such a man may
fairly be said to live by bread alone" (Maslow 1954: 82-83). The Russian
sociologist Pitirim Sorokin (1975: 143) was sure that "hunger depresses and
deforms all the acts of human behavior which hinder its satisfaction .. . The
scientist, poet, painter, artist cease to function in their vocations if it does not
bring food." The British anthropologist Pat Caplan (1994: 20) took it for
granted that "in a famine situation, everyone, in all times and all places,
looks, behaves and feels much the same."
The high level of consensus in these theories does not mean that they are
unproblematical, by any means. The following data presented from the con
centration camp experience make clear that they are focused on only one
side of the pancake.
CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF UNTERMENSCHEN

So far, anthropology has not paid much attention to the study of life in con
centration camps. Looking behind the barbed wire of concentration camps is
very frustrating indeed. Yet it is unavoidable, not only out of compassion for
the victims, but also out of the need to comprehend what it means to be
human. Camp life offers us an opportunity to observe those dimensions of
human existence which are hidden in ordinary life. In concentration camps,
people found themselves in an extreme situation which revealed their iden
tity in a new light, in hitherto unknown dimensions and perspectives (Sal
vesen 1958: 76; Kepinski 1971: 382-83; Gill 1988: 346). The metaphysical
hypothesis about concentration camps is that living in them was a consistent
negation of civilization (Freund 1945: 28; Rousset 1946: 65; Laks 1979: 19).
"We said that it was the end of civilization there," a former internee wrote
(Marsalkova 1945: 9).
The basic attitude toward the internees was exacerbated by the influence
of the senior commandants such as Loritz and Koch, who did not regard
the internees as human beings, but as "Russians" or "Kanakas" (Hoess
1959: 79). The internees who could not speak German and did not under
stand their orders were called "Zulukaffe" by the SS men, which means a
"stupid ignorant" person in slang (Devoto and Martini 1981: 168). On the
other hand, SS men were supposed to be those who were fighting to save
civilization. So, the Jews were told on arriving in Auschwitz: "This is not
Synagogue! Behave like civilized human beings and you will be treated
well. Behave like animals and you will be treated like animals" (Vrba and
Bestie 1963: 106, 148).
ON FOOD AND MORALS IN EXTREMIS 3
Each SS member had to declare that he or she would not torture the pri
soners when tak:ing up their post. They treated them ruthlessly despite this
prornise, because they did not consider them normal people, but "half an
imals, halfhuman," and by their words and deeds they reminded the intemees
on a daily basis that they were excluded from human society. An ex-Aufse
herin from Ravensbrück, Erika Bergmann, has exclaimed during her trial:
"Wer Hätling ist, der ist kein Mensch!" ("He who is a prisoner, is not a
man!") (Buchmann 1960: 17). This attitude survived long after World War
II was over (see, e.g., Segev 1990: 251).
European students of humanity had for centuries differentiated people
into members of"civilized society" on one hand and "primitives," "barbar
ians," and "savages" on the other. If the former were conceived as bearers
of culture, the latter were considered "natural" people, that is, people
without culture. In this scenario, "nature" is considered "low," "demonic,"
"animal," "unrestrained," or "undignified" (Reich 1942: 250). The same
mechanisms that were applied by the "bearers of culture" in overseas
colonies were also applied by the rulers in the Nazi regime. According to
the French ethnologist Gem1aine Tillon, the inmates of concentration
camps were transformed into "a primitive tribe" (Bernardac 1981: II, 38).
When she arrived in Birkenau, Judith Sternberg found it hard to believe
that she was still in Europe. She fantasized that she had been carried away
to some primitive island and forced to live like a savage (Sternberg
Newmann 1963: 20). And a fonner internee from Auschwitz went a step
further along this way: "(W)e not only 'regressed' into our personal child
hood, but in the same sense collectively into the universal childhood of
Mank:ind. There are some indications that the Homo Auschwitziensis was a
modern 're-incarnation' ofthe Homo Heidelbergiensis. With the loss of cul
ture, the framework of an established social order and modern civilization,
Man regressed into the period ofpre-history, before the dawn ofcivilized ex
istence. Had the concentration camps lasted much longer, cannibalism
would have become an everyday phenomenon" (Heimler 1963: 16).
At times, the concentration camps rulers feit impelled to demonstrate the
inhumanity of their prisoners by arranging unimaginably cruel situations
which forced prisoners to behave "like beasts." Such behavior was then taken
as proofthat the p1isoners were indeed subhuman. The social function ofthe
dehumanization ofthe internees was to relieve the executioners offeelings of
responsibility. lt provided extenuating circumstances for the executioners
if their victims were not humans, but "animals." To give an illustration: An
SS man in Auschwitz used to set a dog upon the internees with the words:
"Mensch beiss den Hund!" ("Man, bite that dog!") (Kraus and Kulka 1958:
93; Schwarz-Bart 1977: 376; Devoto and Martini 1981: 98).
4 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
The desired effect was achieved through the criminalization and demon
ization of minorities, that is, through liquidation on a psychological or moral
level, which preceded material or biological liquidation (Devoto 1985: 99).
When asked "Why, if they were going to kill them anyway, what was the
point of all the humiliation, why the cruelty, with which the Jews were treated
in Treblinka," the commandant of the camp, Stangl, explained: "To condi
tion those who actually had to carry out the policies. To make it possible for
them to do what they did" (Sereny 1974: 101).
To dehumanize and demonize their victims, concentration camp rulers
applied physical coercion and various restrictions on physiological needs,
above all on food. The rationale was that when the food supply is adequate,
people can be "proud," they "behave with dignity," "keep their honor," "do
not sacrifice their rights of honor and consciousness." However, under the in
fluence of hunger "honor," "consciousness," and "dignity" often fade away.
Thus, in concentration camps, the norms and values of everyday life were
destroyed, and obsessive weight was placed on elemental necessities: "A
hungry person is like a beast, or even worse. All cornradeship ceases. A per
son can think only of himself. lt was the precise intention of the German Fas
cists to force people with the help of hunger to devour each other" (Hribar
1945: 17).
And in fact, instances of cannibalism were witnessed in Dachau, Buchen
wald, Birkenau, Mauthausen, Neuengamrne, and Bergen-Belsen (Dobrovolny
1945: 48; Lest We Forget 1945; Tomazic 1945: 17-18; Bizzari 1946: 60;
Blaha 1946: 54; Zivkovic 1946: 194; Helweg-Larsen 1952: 178; Domagala
1957: 44; Kogon 1959: 122; Berdych 1959: 134; Gedziorowski 1961: 55;
Nosek 1964: 323; Rost 1964: 9; Lenz 1966: 257-58; Izbicki 1965: 138;
Musiol 1968: 105; Marsalek 1974: 45-46; Vidic 1980: no. 24; Haas 1984: 283;
Milic 1983: 73; Mirchuk 1985: 178; Röder 1985: 51; Badeni 1988: 88). 1
When in 1944, a train arrived at Dachau after traveling for several weeks
without food and water, wagons were füll of corpses, some with signs of
bites. The SS men were disgusted with this dreadful spectacle: "Unbelieva
ble swinishness, beasts, cannibals! One should kill you all! Who could imag
ine that. You are devouring each other! Untermenschen!" (Röder 1985: 51).
BREAD AS A WEAPON
The concentration camp officers were well aware of the fact that hungry and
tired people do not revolt, because sooner or later they run short of energy
for physical resistance. The hungry think more often with their stomachs
than with their heads, therefore, their actions are easier to predict and thus
easier to control: "When I was hungry ...I was like an animal. I did not think,
I did not remember, I forgot my husband and my child; and I thought only
about one thing: bread" (Donat 1965: 304).
German concentration camps
From the very beginning, the first commandant of Dachau concentration

camp, SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke, who was later the inspector of
concentration camps and the author of the rules according to which all Ger
man concentration camps were to be run, recognized that hunger was an effi
cient weapon for the oppression of prisoners. For that very reason he made
every effort to curtail any attempt by intemees to initiate a revolt or to resist
imp1isonment by crushing their basic vitality. Soon, he introduced the rule
that only a half-p01tion of the customary daily ration would be distributed
among the new inmates in the first four weeks following their anival in
Dachau (Richardi 1983: 150; Heilig 1941: 30; Schlotterbeck 1947: 84). lt
goes without saying that the rule remained in force until the end of the Nazi
regime (Ravensbrücker Häftlingen 1946: 10).
Because intemees were believed to be inferior according to "Nazi an
thropology," the worst quality food found its way into the cooking pots.
Intemees were forced to content themselves with what they were given.
And the meals they received were unsatisfying in quantity and unsuitable in
quality ("inedible," as a great majority of victims all over Europe remem
ber). Doctor Hans Münch from the SS sanitary institute in Auschwitz once
stated that some of the camp heroes ("KZ-Helden"), for example, Bär, the
last commandant of the camp, even used to say that whatever was worst was
good enough for the intemees. In log no. 26, 496 he entered that meat from
dead, decaying cows was prepared for them to eat. There were even buttons,
razor blades, condoms, zippers, and the like to be found in the soup from
Auschwitz (Sehn 1964: 55-56). The quality of food deteriorated fmther in
every respect after the beginning of World War II. In the last years of war,
hunger gave a stamp to life in concentration camps: "The Lager i:: hunger:
we ourselves are hunger, living hunger" (Levi 1959: 83).
Italian concentration camps
Hunger was also deliberately used as a weapon to control the inmates of the
ltalian concentration camps. When in the winter of 1942-1943, single persons
retumed from the ltalian concentration camps, the high commissioner of the
6 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
then Province of Ljubljana, Emilio Grazioli, informed the command of the

Italian military forces by letter that the provincial physician had the oppor
tunity to examine a group of intemees who returned from the concentration
camp on the island Rab (Croatia). He found that all of them showed the most
serious signs of exhaustion due to hunger, including pathological emaciation
with complete absence offat-even orbitary, hypotomy, serious hypotrophy
of muscles, dropsy of intestines due to want, hemeralopy, defects of digest
ive organs (vomiting, diarrhoea), light ataxy, and fevers caused by poison
ing. The commander of Eleventh Army Corps, General Gastone Gambara,
commented on this letter: "lt is logical and proper that concentration camps
are not camps in which people are fattened. A sick individual = an individual
who keeps quiet" (Piemontese 1946: 24-25).
Yugoslav concentration camps
Everything was subordinated to re-education in the Yugoslav concentration

camps, which were set up after 1948 to house Cominformists (i.e., those who
had apparently sided with Stalin against Tito). In these camps as well, a
chronic lack of food played a significant role in re-education, together with
heavy forced labor, and these combined effectively to break the dignity of
the people and their will to resist. From the outset, the food given to the
intemees was of poor quality and insufficient quantity: severe hunger was a
permanent feature of their lives. So intense was this hunger that there were
those who, when offered the opportunity, ate fodder intended for cattle and
sheep.
As one former intemee recalled: "All the drudgery and all our other
troubles would have been tolerable had we not have been hungry . ..Ter
rible. Hunger in our eyes, our bones, our very breath. Believe me, people
took bread that had fallen into the excrement in the latrines and ate it" (Mi
lanovic 1990: no. 4). In the words of a female former intemee: "Some wom
en, God forgive me for saying this, picked from the latrines what had been
thrown out by the guards and ate it, may God preserve me that I never did
this" (Simic and Trifunovic 1990: 122).
HUNGER'S MIND
Thus, several weeks after their arrival in the concentration camp, hunger
began to have its effects on the prisoners; it filled their minds, and dominated
all other thoughts. Food was the most frequent topic of conversation among
all inmates, old and new-recollections of good food they had enjoyed
before imprisonment and daydreams about what they would eat after libera
tion. They were incessantly creating imaginary bills of fare with various
good things on them; the richest and choicest recipes were passed on from
one to the other and collected in small notebooks (see, e.g., Muser 1945).
"Gastronomy became a mania in all the concentration camps; not a single
inmate could have praised himself that he remained immune against it.
Psychosis from hunger forced the inmates to constantly recollect tasty dishes,
pantagruelian feasts, culinary specialities of all times and all regions"
(Tarizzo 1962: 164).
If hunger is a sin, then soon enough everyone becomes a sinner. Namely,
the ravenous sensation of hunger as a rule resulted in the prisoners endeavor
ing in every possible way to procure extra rations in excess of the ordinary
diet. This was the reason why it was extremely difficult to find a person who,
in one way or in another, was not involved in some crime connected with
nutrition: in theft, !arge or small, in a small or large swindle; or in trafficking
on the black market. For, whosoever did not know how to become an "Organ
isator," "Kombinator," or "Prominent," soon became a "Muselmänner"; there
was no third way in the German concentration camps, according to Primo Levi
(1959: 108).
To be in command of hunger made it possible for the superiors to exert
even more influence upon their subjects, and thus more absolute power. In
so far as hunger was declared to be sinful, while desires to eat remain perpetu
ally operative in every hungry person, prohibition produced guilt. The
effect was that the victims ceased to see their suffering merely, or at least
predominantly, as a consequence of the social-political world and the
restrictions originating from it, but began to see it as a proof of their own
moral weakness. "We had all very bad consciences," stated a former intemee
with a year-long experience in German prisons and concentration camps
(Schlotterbeck 1947: 86). The question was simple and clear: Am I still a
human if I eat food which is not suitable for people, but for animals? Am I
still a human if I behave like an animal? That eventually caused emotional
intimidation and shaken self-confidence, limiting people's intellectual and
critical capacities, while developing an emotional attachment to the repres
entatives of social morality.
A situation in which a person is constantly deprived of a chance to satisfy
the most basic human needs creates its own, unique logic. lt activates a
defense mechanism within the victims, in which they are identified with the
oppressors. The consequence of this change is the alienation of victim' s own
ego in favor of the oppressor's superego. Those who have introjected the
oppressor' s view of life do not retain enough space for their own ego, which
8 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
accounts for the penetration of Nazi Herrenmoral (the dominance of the

strong over the weak:) among the inmates. The extent to which the victims
accept the oppressor's world view directly corresponds to the extent of the
loss of their own identity (Caruso 1969: 144). This efficient mechanism of
crushing ofself-esteem was very accurately comprehended and described by
St. Paul: "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want,
but I do the very thing I hate. Now ifl do what I do not want, I agree that the
law is good" (Romans 7, 15-16).
THE THEFT OF BREAD
German concentration camps
Nowhere was the effect of privation more evident than in the reaction to the
theft of bread, an occurrence which happened more or less in all of the
camps, as bread assumed a primary value. Naturally, in most cases, hunger
was the cause of the theft of bread. However, some did not steal because of
hunger, but because they wanted to get their hands on bread in order to barter
it for tobacco or cigarettes. In German concentration camps, the only "safe"
bread was that which had already been consumed. Anyone who wanted to
save a piece of bread had to bind it to himself before he went to sleep, "like
pearls around his neck." Despite such precautions during the night, the treas
ure often disappeared (Dobrovolny 1945: 80; Faltus 1946: 208; Hajsman
1947: 188; Schlotterbeck 1947: 105; Geve 1958: 59, 94; Kogon 1959: 106;
Laffitte 1960: 155; Lenz 1966: 56; Kriznar 1968: 102; Musiol 1968: 105;
Muser and Zavrl 1971: 449; Veble-Hodnikova 1975: 100; Primozic 1979:
170; Bemardac 1981: III, 115).
The theft of bread became not only the most important crime but also the
most critical. Whoever stole from a comrade stole his life, murdered him:
"Ein Brotdieb war ein Mörder." Enforcement of the prisoner's code against
stealing commonly involved severe physical punishment by other prisoners
and often resulted in death, even in cases when the culprit stole because of
hunger. In fact, it was sufficient merely to cast suspicion on someone for
stealing bread, and the suspect would be finished off. The only moral dilem
ma for his comrades was whether they should hand the culprit over to the SS,
or deal with him themselves (Internationales Lagerkomitee: 129; Dan'skij
1946: 36; Littloch 1946: 29; Hajsman 1947: 188; Schlotterbeck 1947: 107-
8; Kautsky 1948: 234; Kogon 1959: 106; d'Harcourt 1967: 139, 146; Buber
Neumann 1968: 190; Primozic 1979: 169; Mannheimer 1986: 43; Faramus
1990: 190). From the following example of Albert Hämmerle, a block elder
from Auschwitz, however, it is clear that such a settling of scores was based
to a high degree on the interjection of Herrenmoral: "Styling himself the
'King of the Jews,' he would clear one comer of the block and summon all
those who had reported sick. He would then kill them one after the other. He
took from his victims any money or jewelry they rnight have, including their
gold teeth, and would use this loot to purchase brandy from his acquaint
ances among the SS. On the other hand, if he caught a prisoner stealing bread,
he would ostentatiously kill the man in front of the entire block" (Kraus and
Kulka 1966: 71).
Italian concentration camps
Thieves also triggered a great disquiet among the intemees in ltalian concen
tration camps. They reproached them by stating that their behavior threat
ened the Jives of the internees, as if saving a piece of bread would ensure
survival. In the first months, those who had been caught in the act of stealing
were denounced to the prison authorities, but it soon became established that
the ltalians did not have the moral right to punish these internees-cum
thieves. Thieves were pinned down, covered with blankets, and then heavily
beaten or whipped with a belt on the back. All inmates from that particular
barracks attended the punishment (Jezernik 1983: 96-97).
Yugoslav concentration camps
In a state of permanent food privation, the internees in Yugoslav concentra

tion camps also tried to relieve their own misery by taking from their fellow
sufferers. But unlike the internees from German and ltalian concentration
camps, they did not physically settle the score when the bread thieves were
exposed, but punished them with ostracism. During this long boycott, none
of the other internees was allowed to say anything to the criminal or to give
or receive anything from him. This punishment was decided upon after a
meeting of the inmates of the barracks concerned, after which the internees
condemned the thieves and reproached them for their greed: "We all know
very well that we're not staying here in a guest house. However, we also
know that this food is quite sufficient and good enough for the work we
do ... This bandit dared to steal the food that was intended for another. He
would not die from hunger by missing out one daily ration, neither would he
be more satiated. He is not hungry at all, neither are we. So he must be a
greedy person." Clearly, the majority openly approved of such words, at
10 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
which point the cries of "Down with the hungry ones!" could be heard
(Jezemik 1994: 115).
THE POWER OF HUNGER
The regime of the everyday life in concentration camps obscured an insight

into "behind the scenes" reality for most intemees. Thus, when they jostled
and quarrelled in front of the cauldron, in which there had never been enough
food, they were unable to see the real perpetrators of their trouble, that is,
their captors who allotted unsatisfying rations to them, not the inmates who
were forced to share hunger with them. As long as they were unable to real
ize this fact, they saw in each other a permanent threat to their own exist
ence: if my neighbor gets enough, too little will be left for me! So, hunger
had a strong influence on the behavior of intemees and was the principal fac
tor in breaking down ethical restraints of civil life. Indeed, hunger was
frequently stronger than any prohibition, stronger indeed than the fear of
violence, stronger even than the fear of death (Haulot and Kuci 1945: 11O;
Slowikowski 1945: 10; Dobaczewska 1946: 69; Hess 1946: 166; Helweg
Larsen 1952: 179; Cohen 1953: 132; Lalevic 1955: 123; Prezelj; Kupfer
Koberwitz 1960: 31; Laffitte 1960: 115; Rost 1964: 13; Fajfaric 1965;
Blaha 1966: 31; Holuj 1966: 121; Konobelj 1969: 202; Gerk 1970: I, 397;
Muser and Zavrl 1971: 122; Pawelczyiiska 1979: 75; Milic 1983: 56; Jeza
1985: 69).
Here too, individual reactions differ widely. "I have known prisoners,"
recollects a psychoanalyst, himself a former intemee, "who literally starved
to death without stealing a piece of bread, and I have known others who took
their comrades' bread at the first sign of hunger" (Federn 1990: 47).
Hunger did not change only the behavior of its victims. As the Jewish doc
tors from the ghetto in Warsaw found out in their unique research, every part
of the human body was affected by starvation: menstruation ceased in wo
men; men became impotent. After a certain duration, starvation changed
youths into prematurely old women or men. Apathy became more and more
pronounced, sleep more prolonged, arousal less possible. The passage
between life and death was very gradual, sometimes imperceptible. Death
resembled the fading out of an old, old man. Pulse and respiration slowed
until, finally, all vital functions ceased (Tushnet 1966: 51ff.; cf. Sorokin
1975: 59, 122). According to Sorokin, hunger also deforms the functioning
of the mental processes, the substance of consciousness (ideas, representa
tions, conviction, theories, etc.), and the intellectually cognitive sphere of
the psyche (Sorokin 1975: 70).
In concentration camps, hunger governed all thoughts and even dreams of

the victims. After a few days of camp life, their immediate thoughts were of
the next meal, and their conduct changed. The conduct of satiated people is
never identical to that of hungry people: if the satiated are able to turn in all
directions, the hungry turn toward the table. Yearning for food became an
obsession for the majority of victims, and it was felt the worst by those who
tried to preserve at least a bit of humanity, solidarity, and spirit of resistance
in the camp. The shortage of food resulted in an attitude of "each one for
himself and the devil tak:e the hindmost" (Helweg-Larsen 1952: 31). "Who
ever has witnessed," wrote a Slovenian ex-internee from Dachau, "two dogs
throwing themselves on the same bone will have an approximate idea of
how human mentality changes under the pressure of circumstances" (Vouk
1946: 100). Though the life in concentration camps was indeed savage, there
was also a web of mutual aid and encouragement, however, to which every
memoir written by a survivor will testify. All survivors report how they were
helped and how they were able to help others. All confirm that they would
not have been able to survive without the help of their comrades. Des Pres is
utterly correct when stating that, in a literal sense, survivors owe their lives
to their comrades (Des Pres 1976: 30).
ADJUSTMENT OF NORMS AND VALUES
Permanent Jack of food was one of the most efficient means of crushing hu
man dignity. In order to survive, the internees were forced to give up their
former alimentary habits. Adjustment of norms and values to everyday life
was part of the necessary process of adaptation. One could not get by with
out a certain lowering of standards, and after a while, internees would eat
almost anything, at any time they could get it, in almost any state of decom
position or decay. If food was in short supply, it was occasionally possible to
at least find stuff to eat "which in normal circumstances even an animal
would not sniff at" (Blaha 1946: 110; Dobaczewska 1946: 53; Hajsman
1947: 51, 192; Kovacic 1961: 14; Kraigher 1961: 12; Skodova 1962: 12;
Fajfaric 1965; Muser and Zavrl 1971: 510; Ajdic 1981: 317; Kovac-Zupancic
and Ksela 1982: 65). For instance, during the last months of the war, some
internees in Dachau and Mauthausen used to eat the crusts scraped from their
wounds (Zbornik Boj pod Triglavom 1966: 334; Musiol 1968: 105).
A prisoner who made no revisions or reductions in the hierarchy of previ
ously acknowledged moral standards would perish if he or she applied them
in an absolute way. Prisoners who remained faithful in their minds to their
preexisting values, but in daily living arrangements had to break them, lived
12 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
with destructive feelings of guilt, and either perished or reduced their stand
ards in such a way as to lessen the dissonance between convictions and
conduct (Perl 1948: 39-40; Noyce 1962: 163; Des Pres 1976: 156; Pawek
zyii.ska 1979: 139).
Hunger has the effect of modifying all other emotions, including love, and
in the prisoners' dreams food, not sex, figured prominentl y. A French former
intemee from Ravensbrück at first drearnt "of that sweet moment of reunion
with my flier, with my family ...Later, I could only visualize my friend with
big loaves of bread in his arms. I lived in fear that my family would make no
preparations because they would not be notified of my arrival in time. lt was
dreadful to imagine a homecoming to a house füll of loved ones when the
larder was bare. Still later, I could not even see all my dear ones; only the
bread. lt wouldn't have mattered in the least who gave it to me" (Maurel
1959: 94-95).
The ones who were really starved were not only prepared to eat what
would have been distasteful, repulsive, or nauseating to them in other cir
cumstances, they even ate poison, if only to appease hunger. For exarnple,
the garbage heaps in the camps were rummaged from top to bottom despite
the staring and repugnance of the other intemees who were apprehensive
of an outbreak of disease or infection. If someone succeeded in finding
anything that had once been food, they wiped it up with their hands and
wolfed it down without chewing. The handcarts which carried the garbage
from the camp kitchens to the pigsties were followed by a pack of starving
individuals. Equally telling, some used to gather earthworms and grubs
and choke them down, while others added all kind of worms into their soup
as "Fleischzusatz" (the addition of protein). Snails, too, came in handy:
they crushed the snail-shells with their palms and swallowed up the meat.
Still others used to dip their black bread into machine oil in an attempt to
replace lost fat. And it has been recorded that some intemees even ate the
vomit of others (Slowikowski 1945: 9; Hajsman 1947: 187-88; Helweg
Larsen 1952: 178-79; Lalevic 1955: 45; Kogon 1959: 122; Cokl 1961:
no. 2; Gedziorowski 1961: 54; Krauss 1963: 175; Rost 1964: 13; Musiol
1968: 105; Ajdic 1981: 318; Kielar 1982: 55; Milic 1983: 65; Jakovljevic
1985: 96).
During the last years of the war, German casualties on the Eastem front
were enormous. The medical services were short of blood plasma, and the
prisoners in concentration camps were asked to volunteer blood. Every pri
soner who contributed a pint of blood was promised a sausage and many pri
soners could not resist the temptation, even though they knew what a risk they
were taking. The sausage was not enough, of course, to counteract the effect
of losing a pint of blood, and as a result large numbers of the donors died.
"Many a Russian, Pole or Frenchman virtually committed suicide for the

sake of a single ersatz sausage" (d'Harcourt 1967: 130).
At "the end of our world" some people even went mad from hunger. For
example, an old Polish Jew in Auschwitz went on hunger strike and predict
ed, that on the day of his death, the Third Reich would dissolve. Therefore he
tried to die as soon as possible, which his kinsmen did not allow him to do:
they brought food for him and almost forcibly fed him. Through prayer they
implored him to eat something, because he would not consume anything but
stale bread and water (Holuj 1966: 133).
THE AUTHORITY OF SUPERIORITY
The hungry were not only easier to master, the behavior of hungry internees
also hardened the guards' convictions of their inferiority. If all internees
were "Untermenschen," then SS personnel, on account of their nominal "sup
eriority," enjoyed a certain moral authority. Indeed, when the SS personnel
in all camps spoke about the nourishment of the internees they consistently
used the verb fressen (the way of eating of animals), rather then essen (the
human way of eating); the word also became standard amongst the internees
(Internationales Lagerkomitee Buchenwald: 31; Hruban 1945: 114; Kupfer
Koberwitz 1957: 107; Levi 1959: 90, 1988: 77; Devoto and Martini 1981: 162).
The hungry did not make a favorable impression on their more fortunate
comrades either:
We howl with the Germans and with others: Verdammte Juden! A Norwegian
of my acquaintance, a decent chap on the whole, gave himself away the other
day when we got talking of all these unhappy Jews had to suffer.
'Weil, and it serves them right!' said he. 'I know them; I live in the same
block with them. Every day I see what they're like.If one of them gets a parcel,
off he goes into a corner and eats it up by himself. Never sharing with anyone,
always stealing from each other, always cheating and swindling each other!
No, I've had enough of Jews. Thank Goodness we had only one at home, in
Alesund. He was bad enough ... And it's the same today with Poles, Ukrain
ians, and to some extent Russians in this camp. They are 'grundsätzlich' scum.
(Nansen 1949: 414,415)
Finally, the victims themselves were inclined to interject the image of

their inferiority: "lt was all to easy for an insidious feeling to grow inside one
that one was in fact an inferior, worthless animal, who did not deserve to
live; and that the S.S. were somehow superior in every sense and deserved to
have the power they used" (d'Harcourt 1967: 138).
14 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
In spite of the fact that people were daily humiliated and forced to behave
"like animals"-and maybe because of just that-intemees discovered that
in extremis, a sense of dignity is something that they could not afford to lose.
At some point a steady resistance to their obliteration as human beings had to
be made: "We had no longer homes to defend. All we had was our human
dignity which was our home, our pride, our only possession-and the moral
strength to defend it" (Perl 1948: 60).
BREAD THE ALMIGHTY
The step from "human being" to "savage animal" was but a small one,
indeed. Yet those unable to avoid such a metamorphosis often could not sur
vive. lt was extremely difficult to maintain any self-esteem in extremis, and
yet many inmates were able to continue thinking of themselves as human
rather than "wehrlos, ehrlos, rechtlos ("defenseless, honorless, rightless")
'Untermenschen.'" In a world of so many restrictions, there was very little
room for autonomy or counteraction for the protection of their human dignity.
They exploited their chances to the füllest, however, a�d food played a very
important role as the central commodity of the camps. The handiest and relat
ively least dangerous way to help others was to get additional food for them,
though this plan was based on the premise that the helper himself was not
starving and was able to procure such food. In addition to the aid given to
individual friends, political comrades, or compatriots, there were general
relief actions. Furthermore, some internees found a possibility of resisting
and by this means to maintain their own identity-through their voluntary
abstinence from food. They would keep aside their daily ration of bread to
buy a book or some other means of keeping the mind occupied. Some wo
men, despite being starved, bought scarves with bread, to cover their shaven
heads, or brassieres (Hart 1981: 63; Begov 1983: 212; Gabor 1987: 129-30;
Dwork 1991: 239). Still others used to keep aside crumbs of their daily bread
ration until they dried. Then they put the crumbs in their mouths to moisten
them with their saliva, then making beads or chessmen out of the paste. In
the Historical Museum of Warsaw, Poland, visitors can adrnire a little chapel
which was made that way by Natalie Eychhom-Hispanska while she was in
solitary confinement between May 8 and August 8, 1943, in Pawiak, a
Gestapo prison near Warsaw.
Bread for the intemees in German concentration camps, the so-called
Graubrot, was made of rye and potato flour. lt was hard and sourish, but
despite that, complaints about the quality of bread were very rare, although the
intemees otherwise incessantly grumbled about the quality of food. They
were not even disturbed by the woodchips or sawdust they found from time
to time in the bread. They only regretted that they always received too little,
for bread symbolized life: "Bread is almighty; bread keeps the flame in you
which is burning down, life" (Lanik 1965: 93). There was a rumour in Buchen
wald that an Allied plane had dropped a message that read: "Hold on; the
Allies will soon be in the camp to liberate you." The massage was supposed
to be stuffed in a loaf of bread which was "heavy enough to serve as a good
missile, and would land where aimed. But it was soft and nonexplosive that
carried both the energy and promise of life within it. Bread would certainly
be picked up and not neglected, and it would certainly be broken to reveal
the note" (Mermelstein 1993: 205).
To have bread in concentration camps meant to have an immense power.
To give an illustration: in Auschwitz the authorities used to select the Jewish
internees who were unfit for further physical work for the gas chambers. In
ternees developed various practices with which they hoped to save them
selves by convincing the selectors that they were healthy and able to work.
One of these was to keep aside a little piece of bread and stuff it into the
cheeks so that they would look a little sturdier; and during the selection itself
they tried hold themselves up to give an impression of strength and deter
mination (Fried 1990: 110).
Bread was the main cun-ency, the symbol of power and status; with it, one
could buy everything that found its way behind the barbed wire: footwear,
clothes, medicine, books, and so on. (Hribar 1945: 18; Dobrovolny 1945: 19;
Svata 1945: 161; Dobaczewska 1946: 62; Zywulska 1946: 32; Debreczeni
1951: 102; Lalevic 1955: 56; Heimler 1959: 54; Lengyel 1959: 61-62; Levi
1959: 36; Laffitte 1960: 108; Vrba and Bestie 1963: 86; Donat 1965: 307;
Kriznar 1968: 229; Muser and Zavrl 1971: 525; Ajdic 1981: 366; Bernardac
1981: I, 241; II, 91; Hart 1981: 78; Haas 1984: 225, 257-60; Jeza 1985: 132;
Nomberg-Przytyk 1985: 115; Linton 1986: 218; P6ltawska 1987: 70;
Micheels 1989: 75).
Also, love was on sale for bread. One piece of bread was equal one "shot."
The course of such a transaction, Auschwitz-style, was described in detail
by an ex-internee who secretly listened to the following dialogue in the
women's camp:
"A third ofa lnafwill do, won't it?" the Kapo asked.
"Please, make it a half," the women implored him. The Kapo responded with a
savage blow at the miserable creature' s bosom.
"Either you lie down with me for the third of a loaf, or else you lie down with
out any bread at all!" He threw the woman roughly on to the bunk. She cried
out with pain.
16 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
"Shut up-stop screaming!" the Kapo silenced her. "Come on to the top bunk.
Nobody will see us there." He produced a chunk of bread and gave it to the
woman. While they were climbing up on the bunk, the woman began gnaw the
bread. She seemed a worn-out, sickly creature, something half-way between a
human being and a beast. A kerchief was loosely tied around her head; the
long dress she wore must once have been an evening dress. Through her torn
rags wounds were visible on her body. She must have been on "Schonung,"
that is, a day' s sick leave from work. Disease was written all over her, as she
clambered up on to the top bunk to yield her desiccated body to the Kapo.
Trembling I watched them from my hide-out, watched the Kapo working him
self up to a pitch of frenzy, I heard his fists pounding at the sick woman with
sadistic ecstasy until, with a last smack, he signalled that the act was over.
(Heimler 1959: 54)
In concentration camps, inmates hid the corpses of their deceased com

rades for a day or two in order to augment their daily meal. The intemees
received bread for those who bad died during the day: the more deaths, the
more bread for those who were not yet dead. lt is not so surprising that many
were desirously anticipating the death of another, just in order to get their
daily ration of bread. In rooms where patients with typhus bad stayed, there
were even cases ofbread surpluses recorded (Dobrovolny 1945: 19; Lalevic
1955: 54; Kogon 1959: 234; Pappalettera 1965: 38; Azanjac 1969: I, 217;
Gerk 1970: 1,1394; Marsalek 1974: 45; Vrhovec 1975; Rost 1981: 232;
Bemardac 1981: III, 115).
As ex-intemee Nico Rost noted at the beginning of April 1945, in his
Dachau diary: "Never was the atrocious reality of the words: 'Das einen
Tod, ist der andern Brot!' ('One person's death is an other's bread!')-so
clearly produced in my sight as here. lt is all so dreadful, but this bread is for
us truly-the bread oflife!" (Rost 1981: 214).
THE MAGIC OF PERSPECTIVE
Intemees gave much attention and interest to bread, which always seemed
gigantic in their neighbor' s band, and in their band so small as to make them
cry. lt was a daily hallucination to which they became accustomed in the
end; but prior to that it was so irresistible that many of them, after long dis
cussion of their own constant misfortune and the shameless luck of others,
finally exchanged their ration, at which time the illusion was renewed and
inverted, leaving everyone in a state of discontent and frustration (Levi
1959: 36; Bezic 1976: 79). A characteristic illustration ofthe way the short
age offood influenced the perceptions of people was described by a former
inmate from the island of Sveti Grgur (Croatia), a concentration camp in

Tito's Yugoslavia. Once an older fellow internee said to him: "Wow, Savo,
you are really lucky today, what a big slice of bread you've got." Savo
offered to make an exchange, which they did. But after this, the older man
proclaimed: "I duped myself, that is a smaller slice." They repeated the
exchange four orfive times, "and each time the slice in my hands appeared
as big as a hause to him" (Zivkovic 1990).
Starving internees became new creatures as a matter of course and they
themselves wondered if they were still human: "Are you still human, internee?
Aren't you merely a starved and worn out imbecile, whose life is hanging
solely on a slice of bread?" (Kraigher 1961: 158). SS men and prominent in
ternees did not have any doubts about that, for they must have seen almost
every day with their own eyes how readily internees humiliated themselves
for a piece of bread. Some entertained themselves by throwing pieces of
bread to crowds of starved internees, as if they were feeding dogs. They
stared in surprise because many times the internees would go to great pains
on their hands and knees, hustling and beating each other in order to get a
slice of bread. The "joke" was generally finished by SS men who entered
into the crowd and belabored the internees ruthlessly with truncheons or lashes
(Dragar; Konecnik 1961; Marsalek 1974: 47; Bernardac 1981: III, 71).
A similar "joke," popular with SS men and prominent people in all Ger
man concentration camps, was to put the cauldron with leavings in the open
air and then observe "the greedy-guts" who werefighting around it "like an
imals" to reach the food; the closest stood on their heads inside the cauldron
in order to get a bigger portion. As a rule, if someone succeeded in seizing a
spoonful or jumping into the cauldron, his antagonists would jointly pull him
out. People would pull each others' morsels out of their hands, drag each
other on the ground, beat each other with their fists and footwear, until the
weaker ones withdrew. Suchfights required muscles and this was the prim
ary reason the older or weaker preferred to pick through the rubbish-heaps.
In the general confusion, the cauldron was usually overthrown and the con
tents poured on the ground to the great pleasure of observers (Hribar 1945:
17; Lesnik 1958; Kogon 1959: 233; Kralj 1961: 89-90; Milic 1983: 23).
Although Iicking the cauldrons was forbidden, at noon the lickers and catch
poles were ready. Catchpoles waited until the lickers were deeply engaged in
their business. Then they went on them with kicks and sticks. So, the lickers
knew in advance that they had to swallow blows as well, if they wanted to
consume an extra mouthful. They did not look back to see if <langer was
approaching, because they would lost some precious time at the cauldron
if they had done so (Lalevic 1955: 122-24; Domagala 1957: 43; Kogon
1959: 233; Jeza 1985: 70).
18 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
"YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT"
In all social communities, certain norms and values classify specific articles
or single dishes as proper or improper (human) food. In accordance with the
saying "you are what you eat," there is something more to every piece of
food beyond its nutritive value. This is something that denotes an individu
al's geographic, ethnic, or religious affiliation, one's social status, and per
sonal taste; in a word, one's (human) dignity. For this reason even in times of
the worst distress, intemees did not eat those articles which they could not
recognize as food, respective to their cultural backgrounds. A great many of
those who were interned at Auschwitz remember that although their living
conditions were inhumanely cramped, they still had to share their living
space with numerous rats. A female doctor, a former intemee from Ausch
witz, remembers that she even saw "several women whose toes had been
gnawed by rats while they were asleep, and I saw one whose nose had been
bitten" (Lingens-Reiner 1948: 48). But not a single source mentions that an
yone ever tried to eat rats (which have nowhere in Europe been considered
an appropriate human food).
In my book on Italian concentration camps during World War II, I have
recorded examples of internees who consumed potato peels, grass, bones,
and even earth with "great appetite." But no one tackled rats, mice, or liz
ards, even though some were dying of starvation. Slovenian internees con
tinued to look down on Italians whom they named mackozrci ("cat eaters").
Little children, interned in the concentration camp on the island of Rab, were
starved to the point of crying, yet they teased their Italian guards, calling
them macki ("cats"). When in the summer 1942, an internee in Gonars of
fered a bet: that he would eat a mouse if his tent-mates would give him their
daily ration of cheese, the "tasteless joke" gathered many spectators. The
event was so sensational that citizens of Ljubljana spoke about it years later
in a tone of wonder (Jezernik 1983: 133-34; Ciglic 1985: 101).
CHESS, DICE, AND DOMINOS

In a world with a permanently unsatisfied need for food, the minds of the
great majority of starving people were preoccupied with finding some way
to get an additional source of food, either from inside or outside the camp.
But it would be unidimensional and distorted if we saw this search as merely
subordinate. In the topsy-turvy world of a camp, where internees had been
warned from the beginning-as they habitually were on their arrival at
Auschwitz-that they could expect three months of life at the very most,
the very act of living meant maintaining a simultaneous spirit of resistance.

The most significant possibility of improving the camp menu came from the
packages of food, sent by relatives or charitable organizations. The great im
portance of these contributions, even in Italian concentration camps, can be
shown in all its bitterness by the gruesome equation that was formulated by
the internees at Renicci, Italy: "no packages = certain death" (Jezernik 1983:
173). But it would be an oversimplification to maintain that only those in
ternees who did not receive packages died of hunger. Internee mortality was
influenced by several factors, chance among others. Of course, those who
did not receive any help from the outside, whether or not it was meager, were
in greater danger of an untimely death. One of these was Franc Bercic, who
was interned in ltalian concentration camps at Gonars and at Renicci. He
kept a diary during his time of internment, and we can see from it that he
received only limited help from home; but from none of his diary entries
could we conclude that his life had ever been in danger because of this. The
entry of October 20, 1942, shows that at Gonars he gave two little loaves of
bread (i.e., two daily rations!) to buy some wood for making chessmen
(Jezernik 1983: 212). lt is so much more astonishing when we consider the
fact that among those who died of hunger were also the internees who ate the
last morse! of any food that they could obtain one way or another (as long as
they were strong enough to do it, of course).
lt was not only the nutritive value of the food consumed that was decisive.
The example of Franc Bercic clearly shows that those internees who had, in
time of the greatest distress, enough willpower to deprive themselves of
some food, also had a better chance of resisting forced starvation. Joze
Martincic explains that at Gonars the inmates made chessmen out of dry
bread crumbs which they moistened with their saliva, so that the mass
became kneadable (Martincic 1978: 100), which is to say that they literally
took the bread out of their own mouths. I can not think of a better proof that
even in extremis people do not live by bread alone.
There were far fewer possibilities of playing chess in German concentra
tion camps than in ltalian camps, where internees did not have to provide
forced labor every day. Moreover, chess and other social games were also
strictly forbidden to the internees of the German concentration camps. But,
in spite of the dangers such pastime could bring about, the internees did play
chess. As Richardi remarks of the German concentration camps, the most
passionate chess players were found among the Jewish internees. I could not
discover the kinds of materials they used to make their chessmen; Richardi
(1983: 86) only says that they used "primitive means" for the purpose. How
ever, a Polish former internee from Auschwitz testifies that some internees
in the camp used to make chessmen from bread crumbs (Holuj 1966: 185).
20 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
And a Russian ex-intemee adds,with some bittemess,that some intemees in

Buchenwald were making chessmen in such a way as well "because they had
forgotten what the bread was" (Logunov 1963: 146).
THE LAWS OF RELIGION
In German concentration camps, intemees voluntarily deprived themselves

of food even in times of the greatest distress not only to make chessmen.
These examples also demonstrate that internees' lives did not run into great
er danger because of this activity; rather the contrary. Some of them prac
tized it precisely to improve their possibility of surviving: "The only
orthodox Jew in our group of ideologists attempted to strengthen her moral
defence mechanism by strictly fulfilling the laws of her religion. For exam
ple, she fished all the pieces of pork out of what was to start with a low
calorie soup in order not to infringe the ritual teachings. However, the
thought that she bad fulfilled the laws even in such an inhuman situation
gave her the strength to hold out and remain convinced that she would sur
vive incarceration" (Matussek 1975: 214).
In German concentration camps, inmates were strictly forbidden to
engage in religious activities of any kind,they were not even allowed to pray
silently. Or, as a well-known saying in Auschwitz bad it: "Here, you are
allowed to pray to the devil only." To possess beads,a pendant in the form of
cross,a prayer-book, or the like, was an offense that was punished savagely
(Hess 1946: 184,254; Kossak 1947: 197; Kogon 1959: 326; Marsalek 1974:
209-10; Müller 1979: 29,35). Despite orders and threats there were religious
observances, and some even fasted on certain occasions, for "Man differs
from animals in that he believes in God" (Müller 1979: 28). In Auschwitz,
for sacramental bread Father Maksyrnilian Kolbe sometimes used bread out
of bis ration saying,"Take this,it is the bread of God" (Dewar 1982: 106).
As documented by former inmates from various German concentration
camps, including the worst of them all, Auschwitz, Jewish internees fasted
on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Reconciliation Day, despite the fact that their
survival in German concentration camps was at least twice as improbable as
the survival of a non-Jewish internee (Wiesel 1960: 87; Weiss 1963: 136;
Izbicki 1965: 138; Müller 1979: 67; Dimsdale 1980: 170; Landes 1983: 266;
Mannheimer 1986: 72; Naor 1989: 93; Turgel 1987: 74; Mishell 1988: 305;
White 1988: 135; Shelley 1991: 59; 1992: 9; Langbein 1994: 326).
The question, "Should we fast?" was hotly debated. Some argued that to
fast meant a surer, swifter death. They fasted the whole year round: the
whole year was Yom Kippur. But others said that they should fast simply
because it was dangerous to do so, that they should show God that even
there, "in this enclosed hell," they were capable of singing His prayers (Wie
sel 1960: 87). Dimsdale mentions an example of a young Jewish girl, Tanya,
who fasted on Yom Kippur for the first time in her life at Auschwitz: "Mother
was dead so I could not please her; I did not believe in God at that point; I just
wanted to show Germans that I could be Jewish if I wanted to be, even in
Auschwitz" (Dimsdale 1980: 170).
Nazi authorities knew that such behavior was not in accordance with their
concepts of intemees as Untermenschen and was in striking contrast with the
expectations that "erst kommt dass Fressen und dann kommt die Moral"
("food first and morals later"), as Bert Brecht put it. Or, that "in a famine situ
ation, everyone, in all times and all places, looks, behaves and feels much
the same" as Pat Caplan argued. Perceiving one's own value was the one
necessary precondition for survival in a concentration camp, acting as the
great antagonist to "identification with the oppressor." Thus, the greatest
possibility for survival was found with those who knew "why they had been
intemed." If someone felt innocent and experienced their stay in a camp as a
mistake, an injustice, and the like, they stood the greatest chance of being
among the first to be crushed, since such an attitude somehow recognized the
legitimacy of the authorities by whom the intemee 11.ad been intemed. Those
who comprehended the reason of their internment ha_d the distinct advantage
of finding some sense in their incarceration. Such internees did not expect to
be handled with kid gloves by their guards; in this instance the best hope for the
defeated proved to be a "non-hope" of being spared. Actually, they were able
to feel their own value just because they knew: "If I were not a danger to them,
I would not be (mal)treated like this." In this regard, Communists in German
as well as Italian concentration camps had an advantage over most other in
ternees. There, it was the Communists who preserved the spirit of resistance for
the longest time; however, it was a very different story in Yugoslav concen
tration camps: there was no organized resistance against Oppression at all.
Some Christians had a similar f011itude. For instance, the concentration camp
regime proved to be entirely inefficient and powerless over the members of
Jehovah's Witness sect when the oppressors wanted to force them to infringe
on some of their religious commands. Their deep faith immunized them
against the oppression: no violence was powerful enough to force them into
breaking the laws of their religion. Unlike most other internees, they stayed
in the camps by choice. Since their only "crime" in the eyes of the Nazis was
a refusal to bear arms, they were frequently offered freedom in return for the
signing of a simple document denouncing the Jehovah' s Witness movement;
the great majority of them steadfastly refused (Freund 1945: 129; Kautsky
1948: 165; Kogon 1959: 264; Bettelheim 1979: 123). In 1943, some of the
22 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
so -called Bibelforscherin ("lnvestigators of the Bible") in Ravensbrück

found the demand that blood ofkilled animals should spill to the ground. So
they decided they would not eat blood sausage (Blutwurst), though that
meant they would be hungry (Hajkova 1960: 23-24; Buber -Neumann 1968:
207; Berenbaum 1990: 191). Thus, not only were they "voluntary" internees,
but they did not even eat all ofthe meager meals they were given.
Other internees deprived themselves offood for several reasons. A former
internee from Ravensbrück testifies that Russian peasant women who lived
in block no. 26 "were continually mumbling a few prayers and furtively tell
ing their beads, made out ofbread crumbs or old scraps ofwool" (Dufournier
1948: 55), which they could only obtain for payment at certain risk.
STRATIFICATION OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMP

INMATES
A basic action by each camp regime was the maintenance of differences

between separate categories of internees. Tue more rigorous the regime in a
particular camp, the greater these differences were. There have probably
never been such great differences created between people in the whole ofhu
man history than those that were created among the prisoners at Auschwitz
when the "death factory" there was working at füll steam. In German con
centration camps, the internees of Jewish origin and those from the Soviet
Union belonged to the most underprivileged categories. They did not receive
any packages, had to do the hardest work, and were among the most perse
cuted. Yet Dufournier does not state that there was any increase in mo1tality
among those Russian peasant women who made their beads out of bread
crumbs; in fact, she does not even mention it in connection with them. I be
lieve that such self-deprivation did not, actually, diminish their possibility
of survival, but even enhanced it: "Wherever the camp system of the camp
administrations had succeeded in breaking the prisoners' self-confidence,
morale, and human dignity, the speedy death ofthe victims could be predicted.
As a rule, a person who had lost his inner fortitude was no match for the
harsh living conditions of a camp. Therefore any effort to counteract total
demoralization was helpful" (Langbein 1994: 317).
THE DICHOTOMY OF BODY AND SOUL

The concentration camps were unique in the degree to which they assaulted
individual autonomy, and the victims had little chance to resist. Within the
framework of the camps, one could only resist the camp regime by not al
lowing oneself to be crushed or dehumanized. To deprive oneself of a morsel
of food in such a situation was of great importance to the preservation of hu
man dignity. Under the circumstances, they were fasting to survive. Within
European civilization, based on the dichotomy of body and soul, of the car
nal and the spiritual and on the supposition that the spirit is held in bondage
to the flesh, fasting voluntarily was thought to represent the conquest of the
spiritual over the carnal, the human over the animal. Fasting, in the words of
various Fathers of the Church, "weakens the enemy within," "is the bridle of
sin," "conquers the passion" (Hannay 1903: 138).
A former Serbian internee from Mauthausen, which was supposed to be
among the worst of German concentration camps ("a mill for people," even
internees from the notorious camp of Auschwitz were transported there for
punishment), described in his memoirs the struggle with "the enemy within"
during the worst period, when food was reduced to a minimum and bread
was very scanty. Two acquaitances of his gave him two loaves of bread for
him and his compatriots:
lt was as if two natures were awakened in me at once: good and bad.

"Eat all that bread and appease your hunger once at least," suggests to me the
evil nature.
"Don't, this would be terrible, you wouldn't be a human anymore, if you do
so," the other voice wams me.
"Then, eat at least one half and divide the rest among the comrades"-the evil
side tries me again.
"Are you able to betray your principles because of two loaves of bread, to de
stroy the ideals for the sake of which you went into revolution"-the still
voice reprimanded me. (Milic 1983: 70)
A Prayer book for hire
The famous Nazi-hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, described the following exam

ple from the same concentration camp which also clearly illustrates the im
portance of such self-deprivation for survival. There was a Hungarian Jew, a
rabbi, at Mauthausen who managed to smuggle a Jewish prayer book into the
camp. There was a heavy penalty if someone even tried to smuggle a tooth
brush into a camp, let alone a book (which can be seen as a synonym of cul
ture, just as bread is a synonym offood). Camp authorities tried to isolate the
internees completely from the outside world. They knew very well that they
needed to prevent the victims from satisfying their physiological needs if
they were to destroy the victims' sense of self-value.
24 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
The rabbi came into our room the next day, walking from bed to bed. Many of
the starved people were too weak even to sit up. I expected the rabbi to talk to
them and give them a little comfort. Instead he said he would !end them his
prayer-book to each man for fifteen minutes. The "lending fee" would be one
fourth of man's daily soup ration. One bowl of watery liquid was all we re
ceived in twenty-four hours, yet many people were glad to give up part of this
for fifteen minutes with the prayer-book. lt was a small, black book, and they
would hold it between their palms. They were too weak to read, but the book
brought back memories of their childhood, the Friday night service at the
synagogue, the voice of the cantor. The little book would take them back into
living-room where the candles were lit for the sabbath, and a delicious smell
drifted in from the kitchen. One of the dying men in our room was a judge who
had been converted to Catholicism, but now he, too, hired the little book and
spent fifteen precious minutes with his memories, and then he gave the rabbi
one-quarter of his soup ration.
Wiesenthal wrote this story down with certain moralistic motives: to con
demn the greedy and selfish behavior of the rabbi; and he hardly conceals his
opinion when he adds that the rabbi was justly punished for his attitude: "Ac
tually the rabbi died before anyone else. The excessive quartly soup was too
much for his weakened digestive system" (Wiesenthal 1967: 249-50).
Such a standpoint as that taken by Wiesenthal implies an approval of
crime, which the rabbi's death certainly was, regardless of his personal char
acteristics. Therefore, I do not quote this example to prove that everyone is
punished as one deserves, but rather to illustrate how in the topsy-turvy
world of a concentration camp, even the victims do not see crime primarily
as crime; and especially as proof that humans are not divided into the flesh
and the spirit: a human exists as a unity of both, or else he or she does not ex
ist at all. Like anything that is human, this fact has two sides. Its pessimistic
side, on the one hand, is the truth that humans are very vulnerable and as
such, are easy prey of oppression. Its optimistic side shows us, on the other
had, that no totalitarian system can ever completely subordinate a human
being, because this is the point at which he or she ceases to exist.
Playing chess in a solitary cell
Imprisoned Communists, all convinced Marxists, in Yugoslav prisons and

concentration camps reserved for the so-called Stalinists after the conflict
between Stalin and Tito in 1948, also made chessmen from bread, especially
when in solitary cells, even though they were "very hungry" and though it
was an offense to play chess. Of course, the guards regularly confiscated
these chessmen in spite of their explanations that they were made out of their
daily meal; but the prisoners always rnade new ones nevertheless (Popovic
1988: 64; Vidrnar 1988; Jovanovic 1990: I, 60-61).
Likewise, Cene Logar rnade.a chess set when in a solitary cell, though he
had no partner there to play with:
Every day from the bread which I was given I made a few kneaded figures
which served me as chessmen for both fields. So I arrived at 32. Everything
was so small that not even the guards, who broke into the room unexpectedly,
noticed. When everything was finished, I started to play chess, using myself as
both players. lt seemed, at first sight, impossible to me, but it is possible and
even very interesting. I always made the best move for the one I was playing at
the time. I could not hide from the other, for the other one was also me. Then,
when I had to make the best move for the opponent, which was me, I had to re
think the whole situation once again, where I could have made a mistake be
fore and how I could reciprocate a blow to the opponent. Thus, I could not hide
anything from the opponent, for I would hide it from myself. But when I made
the best move for the opponent, I had to think how to make an even better
move for the other side. In such a manner I had to think far harder than with the
ordinary chess. (Logar 1991: 291)
Beside chessrnen, the internees in the Yugoslav concentration carnps also

rnade bricks for domino and dice frorn chewed bread (Popovic 1988: 68;
Jovanovic 1990: I, 50). The list can be cornpleted with the example of Janez
Jezersek who, when imprisoned on Goli Otok, the most infarnous of all
Yugoslav concentration camps, used to hide some bread frorn his daily
ration to feed a mouse with it (Jezersek 1989: 70).
CONCLUSION: HUMANS NEVER LIVE BY BREAD ALONE

I think all these data are sufficient to prove that people do not live by bread
alone, even when there is no bread, and that statements like "To hunger,
nothing is sacred," as Sorokin has it (1975: 148), are not to be taken for
granted. Not even in tirnes when hunger and distress were at their worst, were
internees, regardless of their origin, education, sex, age, or so forth, in any
concentration camp occupied "by bread alone." A permanently unsatisfied
need for food was in fact cause for substantial changes in victims' behavior
and taste, and it also exerted negative influence on the development of coop
erative processes and the sense of cornradeship among internees. This is
not to say, however, that a person who is constantly hungry will never try
to build "a brave new world," or that because of unsatisfied "lower needs"
(to use Maslow's wording) they have no ability to develop richer human
26 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
potentials. On the contrary, in order to survive as a human being, the person

needs to satisfy his or her "lower needs" and "higher potentials" simultane
ously, and not one after another.
I wish to emphasize that it is not my point to show that Marx's psycholo
gical assumption and Maslow' s assertations about personality do not account
for individual behavior with one hundred percent accuracy; the point is that
they are fundarnentally inaccurate and invalid to the comprehension of hu
man actions: "The Gennans could not get over this. Here were people dying
from lack of food and hard labor, yet then were ready to work, to suffer, and
not even to take a drop of water" (Mishell 1988: 305). Such theories are not
valid in general and invalid in extrernis, they are invalid in general. Humans
are both material and spiritual beings in general and in extremis, although
the fact remains more hidden in general than in extrernis. From this anthro
pological position, it follows that human life exists on both levels simultan
eously: when one of them is affected, the other one is affected as well. This is
the reason that in extremis, the greater chances for survival were with those
who did not allow themselves to be reduced to a mere physical being, that is,
to a person with material needs alone. Struggle for survival was absolutely
necessary and seif-evident. The preservation of human dignity was no less
important, however; human dignity as a spiritual being, as a person, was the
horizon which enabled victims to perceive themselves, not only in relation to
others, but also in relation to oneself. To experience oneself as a human be
ing was a goal in itself and was not merely a means to an end.
AND, IF THERE'S PLENTY OF BREAD?
Maslow states that man lives by bread alone, when there is no bread. He then
asks himself, what happens to human' s desires when there is plenty of bread
and when his belly is chronically filled? His answer is clear and resolute: "At
once other (and higher) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological
hungers, dorninate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again
new (and still higher) needs emerge, and so on" (Maslow 1954: 83).
The occurrences in concentration camps did not always confirm that the
ory either. After the Allies liberated the German concentration carnps in 1945,
the food becarne more and more plentiful. And what happened? A good
many of the former intemees just could not restrain themselves: hundreds of
them in their wild hunger rushed the kitchens and stormed the food stores.
For some of them getting food was their only ambition. They were eating,
eating, and eating, although it gave them diarrhoea, in some cases even
death. After months of starvation their digestive systems could not cope with
the amount of food they stuffed into their emaciated bodies. Having survived
the atrocities inflicted by their captors, they finally killed themselves in a
frenzy of eating (Lest We Forget 1945: 15; Jurca 1946: 98; Geve 1958: 223-
24; Unsdorfer 1961: 196; Vernik 1963; Blaha 1966: 31; Lenz 1966: 284;
Beljanski 1967: 220-21; d'Harcourt 1967: 180; Musiol 1968: 223; Milivo
jevic 1970: 45; Bezic 1976: 252; Distel 1972: 21; Ajdic 1981: 474; Sassoon
1985: 50; Gill 1988: 199; Fisher 1991: 48).
Comparison of current theories and existing material on life and behavior
in the extreme conditions of concentration camps reveals that cultural and
social norms were not erased completely even by the most systematic phys
ical and psychological violence, particularly the violence of food depriva
tion; it reveals that people did not live by bread alone even in the worst living
conditions. Paradoxically those who subordinated themselves and were pre
pared to do anything only to get a piece of bread, had an even smaller chance
of survival than those who could voluntarily deprive themselves a part of or
an entire meal, because the latter did not sacrifice their human dignity. Those
who were capable of such self-control gained a surplus which they invested
in their humanity with a high interest rate. Mere food alone did not suffice
for being successful in this struggle, for a human is a being with a constant
need to transcend him/herself. Abstinence from food in such circumstances
enabled them to preserve their human dignity, self-control, and autonomous
will. I do not know of a single case in which fasters-to-survive would have
died due to the practice. The examples described above prove that those
people who deprived themselves in such a way actually strengthened their
chances in the struggle for survival. lt turned out that the symbolic function
of food surpassed its nutritional value. 2
lt is my opinion that by comparing the generally valid theories on the hier
archy of needs and the ethnographic material from concentration camps, I
have demonstrated the importance of appropriate studies of the way of life
and human behavior in extremis, which offer us insights into dimensions of
the human essence that have otherwise remained hidden. lt is certainly true
that it would be more pleasant if these depths of humanity remained con
cealed, so that the Minnesota experiment would be the only basis for our
insights into the matter. Nevertheless, concentration camps, a place where
totalitarianism tried to give the Nothing the human face of an exhausted and
starved individual, are a fact which marks the twentieth century, otherwise
the century of human rights. That fact cannot be ignored even if we keep our
eyes closed and turn our heads the other way.
28 BOZIDAR JEZERNIK
NOTES
I would like to record my gratitude to Cathie Carmichael, Tine Hribar, Lev Kreft, Nancy
Davenport, and the editor, Steven Kaplan for their valuable comments and advice.
1. For Sorokin, cannibalism which occurs during periods of extreme starvation indicates
that hunger depresses not only the religious determinant and its reflexes, but also mor
al, legal, and aesthetic determinants and even those related to group self-preservation
(Sorokin 1975: 136).
2. lt is interesting to note that in Greek the inside of bread is known as psiha (Seremitakis
1994: 26).
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Reprints availablc dircctly frorn the publishcr Published by license undcr

ON FOOD AND MORALS IN EXTREMIS

That humans in situations of extreme privation "live by bread alone" is an

love, community feeling, respect, philosophy, may all be waved aside as

CULTURAL CONSTRUCTION OF UNTERMENSCHEN

German concentration camps

From the very beginning, the first commandant of Dachau concentration

Italian concentration camps

then Province of Ljubljana, Emilio Grazioli, informed the command of the

Yugoslav concentration camps

Everything was subordinated to re-education in the Yugoslav concentration

accounts for the penetration of Nazi Herrenmoral (the dominance of the

THE THEFT OF BREAD

German concentration camps

Italian concentration camps

Yugoslav concentration camps

In a state of permanent food privation, the internees in Yugoslav concentra­

THE POWER OF HUNGER

The regime of the everyday life in concentration camps obscured an insight

In concentration camps, hunger governed all thoughts and even dreams of

ADJUSTMENT OF NORMS AND VALUES

"Many a Russian, Pole or Frenchman virtually committed suicide for the

THE AUTHORITY OF SUPERIORITY

Finally, the victims themselves were inclined to interject the image of

BREAD THE ALMIGHTY

In concentration camps, inmates hid the corpses of their deceased com­

THE MAGIC OF PERSPECTIVE

inmate from the island of Sveti Grgur (Croatia), a concentration camp in

"YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT"

CHESS, DICE, AND DOMINOS

the very act of living meant maintaining a simultaneous spirit of resistance.

And a Russian ex-intemee adds,with some bittemess,that some intemees in

THE LAWS OF RELIGION

In German concentration camps, intemees voluntarily deprived themselves

so -called Bibelforscherin ("lnvestigators of the Bible") in Ravensbrück

STRATIFICATION OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMP

A basic action by each camp regime was the maintenance of differences

THE DICHOTOMY OF BODY AND SOUL

lt was as if two natures were awakened in me at once: good and bad.

A Prayer book for hire

The famous Nazi-hunter, Simon Wiesenthal, described the following exam­

Playing chess in a solitary cell

Imprisoned Communists, all convinced Marxists, in Yugoslav prisons and

Beside chessrnen, the internees in the Yugoslav concentration carnps also

CONCLUSION: HUMANS NEVER LIVE BY BREAD ALONE

potentials. On the contrary, in order to survive as a human being, the person

AND, IF THERE'S PLENTY OF BREAD?

Distel, Barbara. 1972. Konzentrationslager Dachau. Brussels: Comite internat. de Dachau.

Jezersek, Janez. 1989.Arhipelag Goli. Ljubljana: Cankarjeva zalozba.

Sereny, Gita. 1974. Into That Darkness. New York: Deutsch.

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