This is an image of Spaç Camp during the last years of the communist regime.  The camp had exactly this structure at the end of the ‘80s, where two three-story buildings are noticed within the camp, which were used as sleeping areas.  Furthermore, there are also multiple vantage points where armed guards stayed to oversee the camp and make sure prisoners didn’t escape.

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.

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.

In the first years of Spaç Camp’s operation, roll call was done at the area in front of the sleeping rooms and craftsman’s barracks.  Later, it was done on top of the recently built toiletroom.The sketch shows the latter, where Spaç’s prisoners gathered.As the toilets were rebuilt isolated from above as well, two sets of stairs were used to climb on top, where prisoners gathered to do roll call.Even here, it wasn’t rare that prisoners were held two to three hours in the sun, rain or snow, while officers checked each prisoner.

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.