Tag #138452 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

My family's situation wasn't too rosy, but we managed quite well. My father had a store at home. I used to help him out there, especially on Thursdays and Fridays, on the busier days. The store was furnished according to the style. There were 4 boxes, for each type of wheat flour: '0', '00', '000' and '0000' [Editor's note: the number of '0's represents the grinding quality of the flour], and another one for the corn-flour. There was coffee, candies, chocolate, toilet-ware you could buy then: soap, household soap, Nivea cream – this was the only cream, and everyone used it. Traders used to bring it from Brasso, since it was made there. There was a section for kerosene, and people used to put it in one-litre bottles or cans. Another section of the store held the two-meter iron grindings. These were the grindings, or as we called them, the 'raf's [from the German 'Raff'] for carriages. Villagers used to come there saying their carriage grinding got damaged, so they bought these rafs. There were blacksmiths – mainly Christians –, who put the wheel on a special mechanism. They measured accurately the raf, heated its two ends and hammered them together. Then they heated it again and burnt it on the wheel. The wheel then lasted for years. In the store one could also buy horseshoe iron, thin iron bars and horseshoe nails, because when one went to the blacksmith, they needed the nails to secure the horseshoes. Very few people bought coffee.