Hmmmm. Didn't know what category to put this in. Doesn't seem to be
a "history" category.
I remember reading somewhere, about 10 years ago (I think it may have
been in Liddel Hart's history of WWII, but I can't be sure. Whereever
it was the author only mentioned it glancingly), about the following
bizarre incident in WWII:
A Russian village had been encircled by advancing German troops but
not actually taken. The Germans merely surrounded the village and
continued on their way, effectively blockading the village, preventing
any ingress or egress from the village.
For a while, things were okay. The villagers subsisted on stored
grains and other foodstuffs. Neither did they lack for fresh water
sources.
However, as the weeks wore on, the villagers were not "relieved" by a
Russian counterattack and began to run out of food.
All the villagers had was a mountain of potatoes (perhaps because the
village was a waystation for potato shipments, or because that was the
only crop they were prepared to grow). Previously they used to
consume the potatoes and trade surplus potatoes for other foods.
Now, however, the villagers had nothing but potatoes to live on. So
they were forced to eat them -- and nothing else -- for a period of
several weeks.
Eventually the village was rescued and the blockade broken.
But when the Russian soldiers reentered the village, they were
surprised to see that the villagers had translucent skin! They were
able to see all their internal organs, veins, and bones.
Apparently when you confine yourself to nothing but a diet of water
and potatoes, the vital mineral that colors the skin is absent in your
diet, and your skin loses the pinkish color, becoming like gossamer.
So, to any researcher who would like to tackle this, your job is twofold:
1. Establish the truth or falsity of this story. What is the name of
this village and when did this happen? Where can I read about it? I
know for sure I didn't invent it, but even so it may have been an
"urban legend" of WWII. Is it?
2. Establish whether it's even true that "if one eats nothing but
potatoes" one's skin would grow translucent. Obviously there would be
a lot of other unpleasant things happening first (e.g., scurvy), but
is the translucent skin thing even theoretically possible?
Unfortunately, all I really have to help you is 1) the translucent
skin lead 2) the fact that this supposedly happened in WWII, and 3)
the mountain of potatoes. All the other details may be totally off,
or unwittingly caulked in by me (e.g. it may have been a German
village, overrun by the Russian later in the war). |
