Keeping a dark secret is never an easy task, but keeping it till your 95th birthday and even from your husband, now that's in an entirely different league.
Adolf Hitler's last surviving food taster, Margot Woelk, began tasting the führer's gourmet vegetarian dishes to make sure they weren't poisoned from when she was in her early twenties. She did the job for spent two and a half years and was one of 15 young women to sample Hitler's food, according to the Associated Press.
She kept her role a secret until recently, just a few months after her 95th birthday, Woelk decided to open up about this hidden world.
"He was a vegetarian. He never ate any meat during the entire time I was there," Woelk said of the Nazi leader. "And Hitler was so paranoid that the British would poison him - that's why he had 15 girls taste the food before he ate it himself."
During the time, Germany was experiencing food shortages and a plain diet was the norm, so sampling Hitler's food did have its advantages, she shared.
"The food was delicious, only the best vegetables, asparagus, bell peppers, everything you can imagine. And always with a side of rice or pasta," she recalled. "But this constant fear - we knew of all those poisoning rumors and could never enjoy the food. Every day we feared it was going to be our last meal."
For decades I tried to shake off those memories," she said. "But they always came back to haunt me at night."
