LIFE IN RUSSIAN ZONE

Chronicle (Levin), 2 April 1948, Page 7

LIFE IN RUSSIAN ZONE

( N.Z.P.A

—Reuter,

Woman Tells of Wretched Conditions

. Copyright)

Eecriived Thursday, 7 p.m. LONDON, April 1. A Gerinan woman in a large town in Saxony, in a letter to an English friend ' who sent her two food parcels, -gives a,n interesting -insight into life in the Russian zone of Germany where the Conimuflisfs claiin conditions are much -better than in the British hixd Ameriean zones. "J -nearly eried with joy* and deep emotion when I saw the fat and the onion, ' ' the woman wrote in' her letter pubiished by the Manchester Guardian. "Our daily ratiohs are 350 grams of bread, 20 grams of sugar, 25 grarns of meat, ten grams qf fat, 3d grams of jam, 25 grams of nahrmitteJ. (sueh as noodles, oatfiakes, peas, beam, and barley), 125 grams monthly of socalled coifee (say 28 'grams to the ounce). The bread is very bad, made of oatmeal, bran, woodmeal, ehestnut meal and some corn. Fat nxeans sorne stuff iike margarine or oil or sometimes butter (so-ealled butter for I suppose it never has seen a cow) or we also get instead of 10 grams of fat 20 grams tif sugar. "The jam is not the stuff you kixovv as jam. Only God and the chemists know what' it is made from. Most times we get so-ealled honey and I think it is completely cliemieal. The meat we gei-.is without any fat and most times beef. . Fdrmerly we now and then got pork but also without 'fat. The fat is' cut off before the butcher gets the meat. •• A,s the farmers haAre 110 fodder for their animals, the meat is without any strength. Most farlhers mtist kill their aninmls for want of fodder. We eannot b'uy these things every day or wl^en we just want to have tlvem. We must wait until thcy are made avaiiable on ration and tliat is very bad t'or us. Hoap we do not get at all nor shaviug soap. Once monthly we get 30 grams a person of liquid stuff called ' liquid soap ' but you dare not wash your faco or body with it. Jt is of too caustie an effect. To wash our linen we get about lllb monthly of washing matcrial for three persons (as we live with my iiother). "Our piincipal food is potatoes. We cannot live from the food we get, therefore many people go to farmers with their linen or sliocs or furs or golden watehes and trv to get wheat or peas or

beans or flour for these things. But the farmers in our zone have to delivei a very large percentage of their harvest. So they don't have A'cry much for themselves and cannot give a lot to those nearly star.ving people. O11 tio: other hand many people offer them so much and so valuable things only to gel something to eat, that a bombed-out person who perhaps could onlv obtain some bedlinen as an outfLt but now usc.l for exchangiiig purposes, will not get anvtliing. 1 really should like to iook into the farmer's housc, into every corner and every wardrobc— -it must be crowded like a warcliouse. "As the. farmers in our zone have to 1 deiiver most of their crop and therefore only give a little for manv things, and expensive things, too, we tried to get over the zone boundaries and fouud tlia.t we got more for our things 111 tlio Mnglisli zone. 1 'II not deseribe to you how dangerous and diffi-cult. it is to get over the boundaries1 just think — it is the very hcart of Germany). People walk. for hours and hours th rough the fotests, Avade th rough water aud creep along ditehes, always 111 fear to be discovefed aud caught. 1 only once dnl it last summer but I nearly died of the exertions. It took me five. days and cost a lot of nionev and the result was §Ulb of foodstuff. That is very little for .three persons. But tnost of the women ;got more and often went there. "Nowadavs, it i.s nearly imppssible :md so we all are looking with fear to the spring. What then, when all the potatoes are eaten up and we cannot get anything from the farmers, will happent Many people die of s-tarva-tion. There are 110 inedicaments to be had for ill people nor additional food (only for people with tuberculosis bui it is very little what they get). Only think of the pld people who chnnot earn any more and have lost all thcy had by bomhs. They must starve for it is impossible to live 0x1 the ration we gei )here for two years. Work is the besi lei't t'or us nowadavs and we work very much even on Sun days. As loxig as yo'i Work you do not think why things are so bad over here and why things are like this or that. 1 believe in good at the end and so I hope tlxat oue day a!i will be better for us. "