The Holocaust survivor, R' Tzvi Hirsch Meisels wrote:
When we traveled in the cattle car, we were not given food or drink at all. We were tormented by the acute hunger and thirst to the extent that we came close to death from the agony of starvation. Finally we disembarked from the train and picked the weeds that grew in the fields. We ate them just as they were, and those grasses strengthened us and tided us over this critical period, enabling us to remain alive.
That was when I clearly understood the pasuk, וקוץ ודרדר תצמיח לך ואכלת את עשב השדה, thorns and thistles shall it sprout for you, and you shall eat the grass of the field. In our case, the grass was a lifesaver. We came to appreciate the nourishment and nutritional value of herbs as well as their medicinal healing properties for various illnesses. We inmates were in pathetic physical condition and those weeds helped us overcome our frailty. We lived on those weeds until we were finally able to obtain food fit for humans. Perhaps that’s the reason the sages say that tears flowed from Adam’s eyes when he was told that he would ‘eat the grass of the field.’ Adam had us in mind...
Here is another story on this topic, with a practical lesson. Prior to the Holocaust, R' Yisrael Gustman (1903-1991) was once traveling outside Vilna with R' Chaim Ozer. R' Chaim Ozer spent a nice amount of time pointing out to R' Gustman various plants, explaining which types were good to eat and which were poisonous. At the time, R' Gustman was puzzled, as to why R' Chaim Ozer, who pursued Torah his entire life, would spend his time on this. During the Holocaust, R' Gustman got his answer as he and his family hid from the Nazis in the forest, where they were dependent on whatever wild plants he could gather for nourishment. He credited R' Chaim Ozer with prophetic foresight in techniques of wilderness survival. After the Holocaust, R' Gustman lived in America, and eventually made his way to Yerushalayim where he headed the Netzach Yisrael yeshiva. There he would personally water the plants in the Yeshiva courtyard until the end of his life as a mark of gratitude toward the plants to which he owed his life.
