A family friend was 7 years old in Leningrad when the siege started. He talked proudly of finding a cat and killing it so that he could bring it home for his au

A family friend was 7 years old in Leningrad when the siege started. He talked proudly of finding a cat and killing it so that he could bring it home for his aunt to cook (his father was conscripted and his mother was already dead). He talked about how they would peel down the wallpaper because the glue used to put it up before the war contained flour, and so a very weak sort of soup could be made from it. They evacuated him over Lake Ladoga to Siberia where he spent the war. His father returned to Leningrad after the war and made contact, and they sent him at 10 years old by himself on the trans-Siberian railway back to Leningrad with a sack of potatoes to eat/trade. Back at school in Leningrad they saw German POWs helping cleanup/rebuild and they would trade with them. He also remembers enjoying American movies in the late 40's, before they were banned.