... ... After much deliberation and internal discussions, several leaders and chefs of food stalls, bakeries, white bakeries, butcher shops, in short the so-called nutritious establishments of the ghetto, decided to give their staff a regular and organic unofficial-official allotment of food. It continues to be questioned whether this was done in recognition of the really great amount of physical labour involved, or in order to stop the increasingly horrendous and widespread Schleussen/ see also: stealing, as this has not yet been recognized in the Civil Penal Code/.

In any case, this was a tribute in the most literal sense of the word, by which the aforementioned leaders wanted to control the difference between the raw materials and the finished product, measure their personal consumption and, above all, deal with the Business Division, which trusted their professional expertise, to address the mythic loss percentage between the raw materials and the finished product.

The Schleussen was therefore really no longer needed. The staff were able to use this allocation to cover their private needs /parents, relatives, friends, etc./. But, as you know, the cat does not leave the mouse alone. So, unfortunately, some gangster types were not content with their assigned quantum. After all, it is tempting and very attractive to make it on one's own or in ghetto jargon, thicken oneself. After all /since you can afford it/ you might permit yourself to enjoy and buy a few luxury items, cigarettes, suits, shoes, women, etc.?

Thus, from the elements mentioned, regular Schleuss gangs and organizations formed, which endangered the operation of some businesses due to their unrestrained manner.

With the establishment of the economic police, the inspection of all nutritious establishments by professionals, the placement of guards in front of the entrances and exits of establishments, who had the task of felting all the people exiting of the same, i.e. to carry out a body search, Schleuss gangs faced their first real test. Over time, however, they overcame and managed, with really, sometimes ingenious ideas, to continue to maintain their dubious sources of income.

Thus, for example, it was not an infrequent occurrence that the kitchen heater deliberately threw glowing slag into the ash bunker /which was connected with the kitchen by an ash trap/ then, armed with extinguishing water, shouting that the ash bunker was burning, but mainly packed to the teeth with various foods, passed the kitchen police outside on their way to comfortably empty the loot into the already-ready pockets or backpacks of his accomplices.

Someone came to work one day with high rubber boots. He did not take them off despite the insane heat in the kitchen. And he did this only to be able to tell his friends the next day that he had hidden 8 kg of yeast dough in them and that the softness of the fermenting dough had almost aroused the suspicion of the Kripo officer on duty. So, as is evident, there were also people who did the Schleusse for sport.

Cooked-out beef bones were transported out of the kitchen in large boxes, forming the cover for large "Schleusse" hidden underneath. The helpful kitchen policeman usually helped lift these sufficiently heavy boxes, which were subsequently removed by the attached transport column.

The central butchery and smokehouse of the Jewish self-government in Theresienstadt had its own company criminal police, which also acted as a transportation and disguise crew for larger and smaller meat or sausage Schleusse and was compensated accordingly.

The courtyard of the butchery is surrounded by the fronts of two houses. The inhabitants of the first floor thereof were often surprised by the juicy pieces of meat or sausage which they found on the corridor floor in the morning. By way of explanation, it should be noted that these meaty blessings were Schleusse that had been forgotten or were not picked up, practiced by a crafty rascal who had lifted them from the dangerous courtyard of the butchery to the first floor of the neighboring houses, where he could transport them away without risk.

Meat was hidden in an exemplary fashion, until the establishment of the female Kripo, within the more or less filled-out folds of the female butcher staff’s clothing. So some days one saw women’s bodies that had been angular the day before floating about with a chubby roundedness.

Bread and pastries were usually hidden in Schleuss bags in suits or dresses and smuggled out of the bakery. A loaf of bread is tied horizontally along the spine, the coat draped over it as camouflage, and already one can withstand a fleeting body search. The most solid nutritious establishment was allegedly the Central Provider, which supplied all other operations with raw materials. This operation experienced the fewest Schleusen exposures which enabled good theft with the same results as above.

Here, they only engaged in wholesale Schleuss and that mostly on the open road. The car stops at the side of the road, dark figures seize the already prepared packages or boxes and disappear in the nearest house.

One could easily fill an average-sized book with stories about the Schleuss.

>Without signature

The following must be appended as explanation:

This is of course a special description, not a general one. According to recognized statistics, the percentage of unreliable and dishonest employees in the so-called nutritious professions was 10% to 20%, and another 30% engaged in smaller enrichments for their own personal use. The moral problem was complicated by the fact that in many mess halls people worked directly or indirectly with the Germans and that the thefts were to the detriment of the Germans and not the Jews.

The ghetto administration fought against these dangers to the general public in different periods of time with greater or lesser success and one can say, in line with the psychological analysis, that crime increases with hunger and falls with prosperity.