 The inmates established a camp committee to help them survive despite starvation, disease, hard labor, and physical and mental torture.Apart from the official committee, the camp also had an underground leadership, and, together, the two bodies persuaded the prisoners to observe discipline voluntarily.The father of Costin Murgescu, Ion, had "strong pro-Nazi sympathies" and by September 1942 he was the camp commandant in Vapniarka.