Cannibalism In Behetto

Due to all of the hellacious physical conditions that the citizens of Leningrad had to endure, the mental states of the people were also severely damaged. The desire to find food would alienate families and lead average people to commit crime to prevent starvation. As a result of the constant shelling and mass starvation, death became a frequent happening, people's feelings toward death were numbed, and suicides became routine in the city. Almost every Leningrader suffered through these mental conditions, which were a byproduct of the terrible physical conditions during the siege. As a consequence of the food stockpiles running out, denizens began to desperately search for any substance that they could feed themselves and their children. For
During the encirclement the most common crimes were either the theft of ration cards or food and the murder of someone in order to steal his food (Reid 280). As was previously mentioned, the act of cannibalism also became semi-rampant among citizens. Shockingly, a working class woman was the most common cannibal with them making up sixty-four percent of all the reported cases (Reid 290). One example is a mother who was forced to fed her twelve-year-old daughter the dead corpse of her three-year-old daughter in order to stave off starvation (“Appalling Truth”). Another example is another women who hacked off the leg of her fainted husband to feed her emaciated children (Hastings 171). In total about 1,500 cases of cannibalism were discovered by the authorities while many others went undiscovered (Collingham 195). On the whole the desire to prevent starvation resulted in an increase in the crime rate inside Leningrad during the siege. Due to the large number of casualties from German bombardment and mass starvation, death became a frequent occurrence, and Leningraders began to become numb towards death while some even gave up living themselves. On average about 3,500-4,000 citizens died every day during the winter of 1941-1942 with the worst two months being January and February with about 100,000 each (Reid 3; Sulzberger 121). Some examples of the nonchalance towards
Those half-dead people who are still around do not even pay attention to them (Hastings 169).” Other examples of the common occurrence of deaths and suicides are Axel Reichardt, who was a beetle expert that died in his office while working on his study The Fauna of the Soviet Union, Sasha Abramov, who was an actor who died in costume during the intermission of his performance in The Three Musketeers, and poet Olga Berggolts quote: “We measured time by the intervals between one suicide and the next (Reid 2; Hastings 169).” In summary death was commonplace; citizens grew numb towards death; and some completely gave up on