Siege of Leningrad

During the Siege of Leningrad in World War 2, extreme famine led to civilians becoming so starved that they would eat the plaster off walls and even resorted to cannibalism. Half-eaten bodies littered the streets and parents wouldn’t let children leave the house. Cannibalism became so prominent that a special division of the Leningrad police force was created to combat it. When the siege was broken after nearly 900 days, the Soviets wanted to prosecute those who had resorted to cannibalism. Over 2000 people were arrested and they were divided into two groups; ‘corpse-eaters’ and 'person-eaters'. The former were jailed and the later were shot.