The Orange Cake from the Concentration Camp

Concentration camps run by the Nazis in World War II were their final solution. Though internment in a concentration camp did not always mean death, it did mean suffering, horror and pain. But a human spirit is hard to break and multiple stories of silent defiance against their captors are told by dozens of former Holocaust survivors.

For a woman named Rebecca Teitelbaum defiance against the Nazis came in the way of writing down recipes.

While in the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp, Rebecca one day dared to steal paper and a pencil from the office. When she got back to her barracks, she began to cut the paper into tiny squares and record her recipes from memory one by one writing them down in French. If she would have been caught with the missing paper and pencil, she would have been killed. That did not stop Rebecca though and by the time she was liberated, she had filled over 110 pages.

One of the most famous recipes from her cookbook is her delicious orange cake which you can read more about in this article here. I gave it a try as you can see from the photo above. I have to say that it is perfectly delicious with a wonderful, pronounce orange flavor!

Sometimes food gives us hope and recipes can help us through the most desperate times.