Spots of Light - Women in the Holocaust

Food

Trude Kassowitz

Trude wrote the recipes in Auschwitz.

“I’d pretend to visit someone as her guest and she’d pretend to serve me coffee and cake. She would share a recipe and I’d write it down. We did it to overcome the sense of hunger.”

Trude was born in 1907 in Fiume, Austro-Hungary, and lived with her husband, Oskar, in Vienna. In March 1944, both were sent to various camps in Yugoslavia and Hungary. Eventually, Trude was deported to Birkenau. She obtained the paper and writing implements at her workplace, Kommando Kanada (where belongings were sorted). Her husband and parents perished; Trude died in 2002 in the United States.


Nutcake
8 eggs, 250 grams sugar, 2 slabs of softened chocolate, 250 grams nuts, 2/3 fried, grind, 2 tbsp bread crumbs

Cream ... over steam, stir until thick ... tbsp very strong coffee, 2 slabs chocolate ... Add] 150 grams butter. Stir until strong and spread on the outside.


Gefilte fish
Skin from the head down, remove meat from the back, run through meat grinder with lots of onions, pre-soaked bread roll, parsley, black pepper, salt, 2 eggs. Insert stuffing. Steam

Trude, 1986Trude, 1986