Tag #116410 - Interview #78774 (Fania Brantsovskaya)

We had hardly any food. One had to show the document confirming the sanitary treatment to obtain a bread card: that was because of the fear of epidemics in the ghetto. These cards were for little rations of gray bread with sawdust. Sometimes we were given black peas, frozen potatoes and cabbage. We were even given horsemeat once. It stunk when boiling. Mama didn't fail to joke: she added some vinegar to the cabbage and called it ground herring. She made 'liver paste' from peas, and 'sweet tsimes' from frozen potatoes. At one time we were given something called 'vobla' fish [salted fish]. They had taken off its skin, drained it in water and made cutlets. Mama managed to go outside the ghetto once. She brought our belongings from the Lithuanian woman. I started knitting for policemen's wives. I remember knitting a sweater for the fiancee of the policeman at the gate torturing people. When searching people at the entrance to the ghetto, the guards stored everything they could find in the former Gleizer's sausage store at the entrance. However, everybody tried to hide whatever food in the inner pockets of their clothes to smuggle it into the ghetto, and many of them managed.