Inside the besieged city of Leningrad, Russian citizens experienced deplorable conditions that would be equal in devastation to the atrocities at Auschwitz. Following the German encirclement of the city on July 8, 1941, a directive from Adolf Hitler was given to the Nazi commanders of Army Group North on Sep. 29, 1941, which foreshadowed the struggle that Leningraders would soon be forced to survive: “The Fuehrer has decided to have [Leningrad] wiped off the face of the earth . . . . the survival of the population and of supplying it with food is [a problem] which . . . should not be solved by us . . . .We have no interest in keeping even part of this great city's population” (Shirer 264). Some conditions that the beleaguered Russians suffered
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As food stockpiles began to run low in the fall of 1941, anything around the city that was edible began to disappear. The city's emaciated denizens caused the population of pigeons, gulls, crows, and rats to disappear; others chose to devour the rotting maggoty carcasses of horses or other animals that were laying in the streets (Hastings 168; Reid 183; “Siege of”). In a like manner household pets-including Pavlov's dogs-were also not spared as people's dogs and cats were fed to starving residents (Hastings 168; “Siege of”). As a result of the drought of flour, several flour or bread replacements were concocted. Moldy grain was extracted from sunken ships in the Baltic Sea; floor sweepings, edible cellulose, horse oats, sawdust, and grass clippings were baked into loaves; and cottonseed oil cakes and pressed “pancakes” made of cotton, linseed, hemp, or sunflower seed were baked to feed the city (Reid 182; Collingham 195; Hastings 168). Doctors began to extract sap from pine needles and branches to prevent scurvy, which arose because of the lack of fresh fruit (Collingham 323; Hastings 168). Famished plebeians began to scrape off their wallpaper and eat the paste, which was rumored to be made from potato starch while others boiled their leather chattels into jellies, ingested glycerin, tooth powder, cough medicine, cold cream, casein, dextrine, tank grease, and machine oil (Reid 183; Hastings 168; Collingham 195). The final most disturbing substitute that only the most desperate Leningrader consumed was human flesh. During the siege around 1,500 cannibals were arrested by the police; however, numerous other cases went undiscovered by the authorities (Collingham 195). On the whole the citizens of Leningrad were forced to create and consume numerous distasteful and sometimes abominable substitutes
As food stockpiles began to run low in the fall of 1941, anything around the city that was edible began to disappear. The city's emaciated denizens caused the population of pigeons, gulls, crows, and rats to disappear; others chose to devour the rotting maggoty carcasses of horses or other animals that were laying in the streets (Hastings 168; Reid 183; “Siege of”). In a like manner household pets-including Pavlov's dogs-were also not spared as people's dogs and cats were fed to starving residents (Hastings 168; “Siege of”). As a result of the drought of flour, several flour or bread replacements were concocted. Moldy grain was extracted from sunken ships in the Baltic Sea; floor sweepings, edible cellulose, horse oats, sawdust, and grass clippings were baked into loaves; and cottonseed oil cakes and pressed “pancakes” made of cotton, linseed, hemp, or sunflower seed were baked to feed the city (Reid 182; Collingham 195; Hastings 168). Doctors began to extract sap from pine needles and branches to prevent scurvy, which arose because of the lack of fresh fruit (Collingham 323; Hastings 168). Famished plebeians began to scrape off their wallpaper and eat the paste, which was rumored to be made from potato starch while others boiled their leather chattels into jellies, ingested glycerin, tooth powder, cough medicine, cold cream, casein, dextrine, tank grease, and machine oil (Reid 183; Hastings 168; Collingham 195). The final most disturbing substitute that only the most desperate Leningrader consumed was human flesh. During the siege around 1,500 cannibals were arrested by the police; however, numerous other cases went undiscovered by the authorities (Collingham 195). On the whole the citizens of Leningrad were forced to create and consume numerous distasteful and sometimes abominable substitutes