After ending eight hours of forced labor, prisoners delivered their work tools and got ready to start their downwards walk to the camp entrance. At the camp entrance, all prisoners went through a daily check by guards as the latter feared that prisoners could be holding tools they took out of the tunnels to return in hiding to the camp. Another check was done if all prisoners were present or not, as it often happened during shift hours that prisoners who entered the tunnel would be able to find hidden exits and leave the camp’s enclosure and escape. Around two hours after finishing their shift and checks, prisoners went to the cafeteria to eat lunch and after exactly one hour go through roll call. Later, the command had free time to fill mainly through obligatory readings of the regime’s party propaganda. Afterwards there was dinner and at around nine in the evening, sleeping time started for the first shift.
Sinks were found at the end of the rectangular barracks that served as a toilet, along with the entrance.To go there, you had to pass the doorless toilets and showers, while other prisoners could be using them.The sink was a common one for everyone, made of cement in the shape of a long washtub, over and parallel to which a water pipe was installed with several consecutive holes out of which cold water ran and poured on the washtub.That’s where prisoners washed their faces, or even feet.There was never any hot water.
This is a view of the prisoners’ cafeteria in the ‘70s.After performing their morning routine in the toilet, prisoners who started first shift would hurry to the cafeteria to have breakfast and go to work. At 6:00 am, all prisoners who’d work first shift had to have finished their breakfast and be ready to go to the tunnels.For the first shift that worked in the mines, breakfast was soup with seasonal vegetables and sometimes a little meat.But this menu did not apply to those working above ground or in supporting sectors, as they had a poorer diet and they never had meat.
Whereas the two miners loaded wagons and did seven hellish trips on pyrite or copper tunnels, the other prisoner prepared the bodies to reinforce the whole dug area once it had been emptied. This area would be entirely reinforced on the sides and ceiling of the tunnel with wooden bodies, which were torn up and shaped in such a way to be fitted with one another. This wooden reinforcement secured the tunnel up to a point to avoid collapse and provide for further digging.
Showers were in front of toilets.Mainly in the first years, but also in the later stages, there was no hot water in the camp and the showers only brought the mountain’s icy water.Prisoners mainly washed with water, which they warmed themselves in metal tubs in the private kitchens.They then washed with the warmed water by pouring it on their bodies themselves with whatever vessel they had.Showers, like the toilets, were open and doorless.Prisoners were forced to wash in these conditions of utter lack of intimacy.
The private kitchen was used by prisoners to cook the few foods they received from their families with which they somehow enriched their poor diet. The pots or pans were also private, brought by the family. These utensils, too, were held in the food depot.