Korean war.

[123everton]

I was talking to a neighbour whose uncle was a P.O.W in the Korean war, she told me that the North Korean (Russian guards) fed them sliced up bamboo shoots with their rice and that these shoots were poisonous and killed many of the inmates.
I've never heard of this, indeed I didn't think bamboo shoots were poisonous, I haven't studied the Korean war much, I bought a book on it once but it was American and so completely one sided and unreadable, were they bamboo shoots that were killing the prisoners or just the harshness of the gaol bringing on a mild insanity?

[squarebear]

I assume they put some kind of poison in the bamboo?

[123everton]

That's my thinking, but I've never come across this fact or notion ever, it is cold blooded murder if it's true, one in which the Soviets would be complicit, you'd think there'd be more said about it.
Aren't you in Leeds?
I'm up there with my mates on Saturday, where's good for a drink etc?

[dothawkes31]

http://www.inbar.int/...orking_Paper_No39.htm

[dothawkes31]

what you would need to be able to establish is whether the Russian guards were aware that the type of bamboo shoots they were supplementing the ppw diet with was one of the poisonous ones. Or were they ordered to use this supplement by their superiors and were not aware why it was being added.

[dothawkes31]

*sp POW, and of course the North Koreans could well have known about it as it grew in their country but the Russians didn't know,