As long as there is news, there are no suicides in the ghetto. They have hope that deliverance is at hand. The movie ends with the smashing of that hope, but with an alternative possibility in which all the hope was fulfilled. Sometimes hope is more important than food. Beginnings are scary.
Endings are usually sad, but it's what's in the middle that counts.
So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will. Guido smiling in the rain at the concentration camp. The country has come through a major war and has been broken up into small, isolated and scared communities. A private army terrorises the communities.