A cup of crumbs

“Chew your food long enough to keep your stomach full. And don’t forget to brush the crumbs from the table into the jar. How to collect crumbs – a little bit every day so that you have a cup of crumbs at the end of the week, something extra to survive.”

Great Famine (Greek: Μεγάλος Λιμός) in Greece in 1941-44

“The wholesale plunder of Athens has begun. The remaining food and fuel supplies were used first. … [The worker] stated that the entire market is sealed with a swastika. The Germans emptied all public [fuel] tanks. … A marathon farmer who came home today to report that our nurses are safe in the hills said his herds of poultry, even pigeons, had been fired upon by a machine gun and a swastika planted in four corners of the field. He was warned not to take anything from the fields under death threat. The invaders have been gathering meat, cattle and sheep to the north of the city for several days, and have now reserved dairy herds near Athens for their own use. … My friends at the Ministry of Agriculture estimate that the national supply of 200,000 tons can be cut by one third by slaughter. Modern transport was seized simultaneously with food supplies. Syntagma Square is already filled with seized cars. … Buses are also used. And especially the trucks… Orders shipped and handed over by radio require all bikes to be delivered to the destination. Over five thousand were admitted. Wholesalers and retail stores are being emptied systematically. This is done using the polite method of “buying” freshly created Signs of Occupation, with no value outside of Greece. Early in the morning, all soldiers in Athens who were not aware of any details, were issued with 100 such signs. … They were sent to stores to buy everything from women’s stockings to electrical equipment. They took their “purchases” to the parcel post office or to the Railway express and sent them immediately home, to the Reich … I saw a squad of soldiers cleaning a small leather goods store, carrying their new suitcases to a clothing store, to be filled. The Eastman Kodak store was empty of cameras. … Major Greek industries are being taken over. This is done using the same polite system of “buying” 60 percent of the outstanding shares and installing a German director. Raw materials, metal, leather and so on are confiscated. Dozens of small factories returned to their owners by derisive Germans as irrelevant, there are no materials for processing. … The carpenters cannot get the nails that will allow them to do some of the construction work that is still going on. Even cement… you can’t have any more. Finally, supplies from hospitals and drugstores are being taken… The incredible speed and efficiency of this process makes us dumbfounded, not knowing where to turn for the most ordinary supplies.” *1

Laird Archer

“However, while the occupiers destroyed the Greek economy, the Allies naval blockade prevented the Greeks from importing food from outside continental Europe. On April 25, 1941, the Greek Embassy in London sent a request to the Foreign Office to organize food and medical aid for Greece. Over the next six months, the Prime Minister of the Greek government in exile, Emmanouil Tsouderos, repeatedly called on the British government to loosen the blockade and allow food supplies to be released to the starving population. London, however, consistently refused.” *2

“This constant concern for allies must end once and for all… I don’t care when you say that people under your administration are starving. Let them perish until no German starves. Great Famine (Greece)” *3

1* https://pl.qaz.wiki/wiki/Great_Famine_(Greece)

2* https: //www.konflikty.pl/historia/druga-wojna-swiatowa/wielki-glod-194142-niezabliziona-rana-grecji/

3* words of Hermann Göring in a letter to the Reich commissars and military commanders of the occupied territories of August 6, 1942.