Answer Miep Gies: "My responsibility, next to my office duties, was to take care of food for eleven people; eight hiding in the Attic, besides a student (Kuno van der Horst, who had refused to sign a statement from the Germans in which the student promised to be loyal to the occupying forces), wanted by the Germans, whom we harboured in our home and, last but not least, for my husband Jan and me. Most of the food I could buy with food vouchers. Jan obtained them illegally for me from the City Hall, where he worked. It became gradually more and more difficult to find shops that had sufficient food in store. So, every morning I left my home with shopping bags and as soon as I saw people lined up in front of a shop I would join them, whatever the shop was, because also clothing, shoes, tobacco etcetera were all rationed.  My next problem was that I could not buy everything for all my friends in one shop, because that would raise suspicion. I also could not bring more than one bag could hold, to the office, (where the hiding place was), because then the other workers may start to wonder. Only the two directors and Elly, my office colleague, knew about the hiding place in the building attached to our office. So, I was a good part of the day busy to walk from shop to shop and then back to the office. Food you could get during the war was simple: potatoes, bread, vegetables, butter, meat, cheese, sugar and jam, but really very small portions. At the end of the war we were truly starving, because of no electricity, water daily only one hour, not anything to heat our homes, and no salt, fat, sugar, meat or butter at all."