The huge building was divided into three parts. In the middle hall, six reactor furnaces produced phthalic anhydride.
The anhydride, i.e., the solid component of the acid, flowed as hot, crystalline, blue-shimmering smoke into interconnected sheet metal chambers, where the smoke cooled and adhered to the walls.
During this cooling process, layers centimeters thick formed in the chambers, which had to be repelled. Rotating spindles transported the finished anhydride into coarse, watertight paper bags for shipping. As a future chamber cleaner, I was immediately responsible for the cooling system of furnace six.
In the west hall, three colleagues worked for reactors one to three, and here in the east hall, two colleagues kept the chambers for furnaces four and five clean.
After this general explanation, the brigadier opened a crate, handed me a respirator mask, goggles, a bandana, and a pair of gloves. He kept in his hand a wooden pole about four meters long and as thick as an arm, to the end of which was attached a broad non-sparking brass spatula. After we had donned the protective work gear, he opened one of the many flaps equipped with quick-release fasteners.
With the spatula on the long wooden rod, he deftly pushed and scraped the anhydride from the sheet metal walls, which fell rumbling onto the rotating spindle. Afterwards, he pressed the scraper into my hand and watched me work. My supervisor immediately noticed that I was used to heavy work.
With a few words of advice, he lectured me forcefully: ‘When you open a chamber, never without a mask and goggles – never, you understand! Put your head back when opening, sometimes the chambers spew toxic smoke! Make sure you don’t sweat too much when you’re working, because sweat and anhydride will turn to acid and burn your face.
‘Before I forget,’ he added, ‘on Mondays all colleagues clean the cooling system of reactor one together until the lunch break, on Tuesdays that of furnace two, and so on. After that, everyone takes care of their own area. On Saturdays you have a big cleaning, after that it’s closing time.’ After this official instruction, he stomped off satisfied, because from now on he only had to take care of the chambers of oven six occasionally.
The following day, I got to know all my work colleagues during the morning communal cleaning. They were all very agreeable people who were easy to get along with. Because of the spacious halls, we had little contact anyway, except for the large-scale cleaning. The pay for this work was moderate. The monthly wage was acceptable because of the 20 pfennig per hour bonus, which should better have been called the poison bonus.
With that, one could easily dress from head to toe, if it didn’t necessarily have to be a winter coat. My mother received a monthly allowance of 100 marks. Without having to feed a family, I was doing very well financially with the remaining money.
The work was not particularly hard, but dull and very harmful to health. Most workers didn’t stay long for fear of getting sick. I was plagued by another problem: How do I get a job? This question was constantly on my mind. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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