drusus caesar, her second son, was put in prison in 33 ad, and starved to death by orders of tiberius (he managed to stay alive for nine days by chewing the stuffing of his bed); agrippina's youngest daughter, julia livilla, was exiled on an island in 41 by her uncle, emperor claudius, and her death by starvation was arranged by the empress messalina. it is also possible that vestal virgins were starved when found guilty of breaking their vows of celibacy. ugolino della gherardesca, his sons, and other members of his family were immured in the muda, a tower of pisa, and starved to death in the thirteenth century. dante, his contemporary, wrote about gherardesca in his masterpiece the divine comedy. in sweden in 1317, king birger of sweden imprisoned his two brothers for a coup they had staged several years earlier (nyköping banquet). according to legend they died of starvation a few weeks later, since their brother had thrown the prison key in the castle moat. in cornwall in the uk in 1671, john trehenban from st columb major was condemned to be starved to death in a cage at castle an dinas for the murder of two girls. the makah, a native american tribe inhabiting the pacific northwest near the modern border of canada and the united states, practiced death by starvation as a punishment for slaves. concentration camps and ghettos buchenwald inmates, 16 april 1945, when camp was liberated many of the prisoners in the nazi concentration camps were murdered through deliberate maltreatment, disease, starvation, and overwork, or were executed as unfit for labor. many occupants of ghettos in eastern europe also starved to death, most notoriously in the warsaw ghetto in german-occupied poland. prisoners were transported in inhumane conditions by rail freight cars, in which many died before reaching their destination. the prisoners were confined to the cattle cars for days or even weeks, with little or no food or water. many died of dehydration in the intense heat of summer or froze to death in winter. nazi concentration camps in europe from 1933 to 1945 deliberately underfed prisoners, who were at the same time forced to perform heavy labour. their diet was restricted to watery vegetable soup and a little bread, with little to no dietary fats, proteins or other essential nutrients. such treatment led to loss of body tissues, and when prisoners became skeletal, the so-called muselmanns were murdered by gas or bullets when examined by camp doctors. maximilian kolbe, on a west german postage stamp, marked auschwitz starvation was also used as a punishment where victims were locked into a small cell until dead, a process which could take many days. saint maximilian kolbe, a martyred polish friar, underwent a sentence of starvation in auschwitz concentration camp in 1941. ten prisoners had been condemned to death by starvation in the wake of a successful escape from the camp. kolbe volunteered to take the place of a man with a wife and children. after two weeks of starvation, kolbe and three other inmates remained alive; they were then executed with injections of phenol.