Semprun, a member of the Resistance who was captured and imprisoned at Buchenwald, wrote that the latrines were the one place in the camp where humanity was restored to the prisoners:
It was in the collective latrines, in this unhealthy atmosphere reeking of urine, shit, feverish sweat, and acrid makhorka, that we found one another, literally brought together by huddling around the same cigarette butt, sharing the same caustic attitude as well, the same combative and fraternal curiosity about the chances of our unlikely survival.
Or, more likely, the death we would share.
Stephen Sparks 