What's the meaning of "hold with" in this context?

The below is from a book, Man's Search for Meaning.

In this book, there's an abject account about how the inmates of a concentration camp eat up the daily bread ration. Of this account I cannot figure out what "held with" means.

I checked out Webster's Learners Dictionary.

Here's what I found about "hold with."

?hold with

[usually used in negative]

to agree with or approve of (something)

? I don't hold with all these newfangled notions!

But this meaning does not seem to fit in the sentence in question.

Could you tell me what "hold with" exactly means?

There were two schools of thought. One was in favor of eating up the ration immediately. This had the twofold advantage of satisfying the worst hunger pangs for a very short time at least once a day and of safeguarding against possible theft or loss of the ration. The second group, which held with dividing the ration up, used different arguments. I finally joined their ranks.