Josef Bannert

“It was my day off on the twenty-first. I was with the company. It was still dark in the morning when we were woken up by the terrible roar of airplanes. And because the Russians knew their way around there very well from the exercise, a plane with navigators landed and they immediately took over the navigation towers. And then it was one Annushka plane after another and tanks rolling from the inside, with headlights still wrapped in wax paper. We had never seen tanks like that before. They were sixty-twos, and we had fifty-fives, tops.”

“There was a regulation for every task. For instance, one team of six people had to dig up half a metre of a corridor per shift, per person. At the end of the month, surveyors would come to measure it and add it all up. And that's how we were paid. To achieve a record, longer drilling rods were used and we would try to do significantly more than the regulation required. It had to be at least thirty percent more than the regulation required. That would always be for some sort of communist anniversary. We would have records for The Great October Socialist Revolution or some sort of victory and so on.”

“They said: “You've got results. Your team is doing well. You're exceeding the requirements. You should be in the party.” But I didn't want to join, so I told them: “I can't do two things at once. To be a good party member and a good miner.” And, to be completely honest, I only worked so much so that my kids could study.”