Anyone who didn’t meet his target was forced back to the tunnel with the other shift and held there until the end of that shift with no food or rest at any given moment until they met their daily target. Police officers inflicted extraordinary violence to those prisoners who refused to enter the tunnel.

In Spaç, prisoners died from mine accidents, diseases or executions by guard soldiers in escape attempts. Their bodies were not returned to their families, instead they were buried by camp command in a place that was kept secret during the years of dictatorship and after the regime’s fall this burial site was found out to have been in Shpal, Mirdita. No name was put on the prisoners’ graves, only a number. Family members have found a part of their relatives’ graves in Spaç Camp according to the prisoner’s data, which were placed in a small glass bottle in the grave, near the victim’s head.

In the pyrite area the daily rate for each working group was seven wagons. As such, the two carters of the group had to fill seven wagons of mineral.  According to former prisoner Shkëlqim Abazi’s testimony, a wagon would take around 200 shovels of pyrite to fill. A shovelful of pyrite weighed from 18 to 25 kg. According to an average number, one wagon had around 3,600 kg of pyrite.  This estimate would mean that the two carters had to fill seven wagons, or 25,200 kg of mineral per shift, or 12,600 kg of mineral each.  Imagine the daily routine for this enslaving work where one man had to load 12,600 kg of mineral every day!

Beyond the grueling process of this mineral’s extraction, pyrite tunnels were far more dangerous than copper ones. The terrain was highly unstable due to the mineral’s acid sand-like composition, therefore collapses in pyrite tunnels were quite often. Furthermore, the acid environment made work all the harder. Acid drops that dripped ceaselessly in the tunnel not only eroded and burnt the prisoner’s unprotected skin; they also eroded and destroyed the rails on which prisoners had to push their wagons. This added on to the exhausting work: as the wagons had to be pushed for around one kilometer and the same distance back.

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 few free time remaining after the prisoner’s routin upon returning to the camp, so-called ajrim (literally: “airing”) was allowed, meaning a walk on the top of the toilet room, where roll call was done, too. This was also the freest area for prisoners as they could converse without any possibility for spies to capture their exchanges, as often happened in sleeping rooms.