In the morning I’m telling you about, it was a dreadful frost. Some said that it could have been – 35°C, others -40°C, for sure it was that the coldness was horrible. On our way to the place that the car was taking us we could hear how the firewood from the houses was cracking. By that time it didn’t exist any changing room at the mine. You had to go with your working clothes on, from home. This was convenient because it didn’t demand a third line of clothes, clothes which then, after the war, were hard to get. A huge inconvenience was that the dirty clothes didn’t keep you worm as the clean ones. The airless parts of oil or other dirty things stuck on you as an iron plate and still as a plate “kept” you worm. On our feet we were wearing water boots which, although I took as big, so more stocking will fit, kept colder than worm. I was taking a pair of stocking which I covered in a paper; these kept a part of the foot transpiration and our feet didn’t freeze anymore. Some preferred the wheat straws but I couldn’t feel any difference, in better, in relation with the paper. Most of us had a stoking from paper in those water boots.
At the place where the cars were, still nobody appeared. Maybe I was a little earlier. The clock from the belfry shows me I’m right, but usually when it was so cold, the drivers get late. The other mine diggers took shelter at the houses from nearby. From time to time we would rub our nooses and ears, and so that our feet won’t freeze we would scrape it continuously.
The drivers are here. We “rushed” to the car so we would take a safely place under the canvas. The car was old, from the time of the war. We set down. The “privileged” places were the ones from the middle. The ones that managed to get there were surrounded by a human “wall”. A warm wall! But in the middle didn’t fit more than 20 people, while the others were left to be the brick of that human construction. And like any other wall, this one was also almost undefended, after the many holes the canvas had that seemed to be clear. My feet didn’t warm up yet. I wished the car had spent more time in the garage so that we could “get” warmer. But no! Today we are being precise! The driver assures us that on this coldness the engine reduction is very good and the engine would “pull up” much better. The cold was “pulling” us up. I didn’t manage to get a privileged place. Through the canvas holes the cold seemed to rupture my soul. You could not do anything else than bearing ahead. Nobody was smoking.