FAMINE IN FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 October 1943, Page 5

FAMINE IN FRANCE

NAZI ATTEMPTS TO HIDE TRUTH USE OF “FOOD SUBSTITUTES” A decree has been issued in France making it an offence for a shopkeeper to allow a queue to form before his door. He must now put up a notice that he has a given quantity of a produce and at the same time display a notice that only customers holding certain numbered cards will be served. The reason behind this is that the sight of queues conduces to mass-reali-sation of the extent of hunger among the population, and a hungry man, or woman, soon becomes an angry subject. It is in queues, too, that news is spread, that women pour out their tales of departed husbands and sons dragged off to Germany for slave labour, and hatred of the invader grows greater. A recent letter from France to friends in England told how the writer carefully gathered up every crumb of the wretched allowance of bread for a last mouthful. The Central Research Laboratory has been formed. Its aims, according to the “Petit Journal,” are three: To carry out a general inquiry into France’s food supply, to make an anlysis of various foods and food-substitutes, and to continue research work. The paper calmly admits that the T card now represents 1,200 calories, where 4,400 are necessary to ensure normal daily nourishment.

The laboratory has made a start. More than a million litres of animal blood daily is recovered, from which “perfectly wholesome and edible sausages” are made. Progress has been such; the newspaper declares, that the laboratory can now serve a complete menu with substitute foods: plasma sausage and ham, peanut butter, octopus tripe, fish scallop, firtree-steak, dried beans, potatoes, cabbages, vegetable cheese, and lotus coffee, with carrots as sugar. Paris has 311 communal restaurants, where 48,540 “meals” are served each day. Another 22 wore to be opened before the end of July. The. procuring of food is becoming a fight for food. It is not a mere figure of speech that prominent men recently escaped from France use when they say France is starving, it is absolute truth.