June 2, 1942:
- "Viennese Jews are deported to the Minsk (Belorussia) Ghetto.
One woman, Elsa Speigel, decides to leave her 51/2-month-old son, Jona, behind.
The baby will eventually be sent to the the camp/ghetto at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia, where he will survive the war. - "The BBC reports that 700,000 Jews have been exterminated.
Its information comes from a report smuggled out of Poland by the Jewish Bund in Warsaw.
- Hunger and Starvation
"Besides shootings and gassings, the Nazis also killed Jews through natural means: slowly starving them to death.
In ghettos such as Warsaw, Jews received food rations that were a fraction of normal requirements.
Children and the elderly perished first.
Bloated corpses littering streets became commonplace."In the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto, journalist Joseph Zelikowicz witnessed thousands of people dragging themselves through streets, rummaging through piles of garbage to find 'a piece of broken pot that can still be licked, or a rag that once wrapped food and can still be gnawed at.'
"Zelikowicz described bodies distorted by starvation, with 'flabby stomachs, sunken breasts, hollows around their necks,' and legs so badly swollen that 'if you stick a finger in such a leg, you leave an impression, a sallow gray spot, as in half-baked bread.'
"In concentration camps, inmates also suffered starvation but were additionally forced to work to the point of exhaustion.
Utterly desperate for food, prisoners in some camps even ate grass.
Many became skeletal figures with dry, ashen skin, their cheekbones almost protruding, with elongated heads.
Most also suffered from extreme, dehydrating diarrhea.
Totally apathetic to life, for many relief came only through death."