1,500 people were arrested for cannibalism, 300 of them shot, many of them refugees not entitled to ration books. Corpses lay in the street with strips of flesh cut away, women with their breasts hacked off. One housing administrator entered a flat to find its occupant boiling a stew on her stove. Upon lifting the lid she found inside a child’s hand. Children were the most vulnerable, being so trusting of a kind-sounding stranger and their flesh being the most tender. Parents forbade their children to venture out alone, and, unless accompanied, everyone was frightened of being out in the dark,
...more
