ABSTRACT
The idea that Mauthausen could include a canteen is so ludicrous that no book has ever mentioned it, for fear of creating the impression that the place had any redeeming feature. Some survivors have said it existed, but not in physical form. In fact it existed physically, as a locker in the toilets in the centre of Block 1, next to a room kept exclusively for the use of the Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer. It was, of course, run by the SS, with the stock housed in a Block next to the reservoir outside the fortress, and was open only to German prisoners, who would place their orders with their Blockschreiber, It offered nothing except beetroot, combs, pens, ink, sometimes jam, and always cigarettes, of the Yugoslav Zora brand. The purpose was to spy on the prisoners and to serve as propaganda if the International Red Cross were ever to be admitted. For relaxation there was also football, played on Sunday afternoons, in every case but one on the Appellplatz concrete. At first the players had nothing better for a ball than a sewn-up bundle of rags, but when the SS saw the possibility of deriving entertainment from such sport they gave the prisoners a proper ball. Four, and only four, national teams were organized: German, Spanish, Czech, and Austrian, the last being allowed exceptionally to form their separate group. 1 A championship was held annually, and in 1943 the Germans won, with the result that they were allowed to play the SS on the SS sportsfield. (The game ended in a tie: 2-2.) The occasion provided an opportunity for SS propaganda, designed for International Red Cross consumption. Photographs showed the players together and spectators who included prisoners, but only the Prominenten and the Kapos saw the play, and among the Spaniards apparently only Boix. 2
