During World War II, the Germans put the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland into ghettos which restricted their movement and, most crucially for their survival, access to food. The Germans saw the Jews as 'useless eaters,' and denied them sufficient food for survival. The hunger which resulted from this intentional starvation impacted every aspect of Jewish life inside the ghettos. This book focuses on the Jews in the Łódź, Warsaw, and Kraków ghettos as they struggled to survive the deadly Nazi ghetto and, in particular, the genocidal famine conditions. Jews had no control over Nazi food policy but they attempted to survive the deadly conditions of Nazi ghettoization through a range of coping mechanisms and survival strategies. In this book, Helene Sinnreich explores their story, drawing from diaries and first-hand accounts of the victims and survivors. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘This is a wonderful book on an important yet understudied topic. Using the themes of food and hunger to analyze everyday life and experience in three Nazi ghettoes, Sinnreich significantly expands our understanding of Jewish experience during the Holocaust. Her careful attention to the symbolic, social, and material functions of food is especially impressive.’

Alice Weinreb - Loyola University Chicago

‘The book explores how socioeconomic status, gender, and religion affected access to food. It also depicts Jewish communal and individual efforts to smuggle, barter, or steal in order to stave off food deprivation. … Highly recommended.’

M. Rice Source: Choice