Tag #138548 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

There were two board warehouses where they sold boards, and there were two carpenters, around five tailors, a Jewish doctor and three Jewish lawyers. The other Jews lived anyhow. and how did they sustained themselves? On Thursday they went to the market in Lapos and bought up eggs, there were no egg factories yet. Each week on Sunday and Thursday the villagers came to the market and sold eggs, they came from as far as 20-25-30 kms. I remember an egg cost 25 banis. One used to look at the eggs to see how big they were, and bought some 3,000-4,000 eggs for 20 banis each. There were 2 meters long and half a meter wide chests, and they used to put some 1,200 eggs in such a chest, this was the standard, and they used hay, straw and offal timber to prevent them from breaking as easily as today. This had to be done very quickly, because it was quite hard work. They had such skill, they could hold 6 eggs in their hands. They nailed down the chest, hooped it with thin bands, then in the afternoon the wholetraders from Des came and bought three or four such chests, so who they made a profit of 10 banis, or 5 banis per egg. They couldn't sell all the eggs, because everyone had hen at home. We too had 5-8 hen, so we didn't have to buy eggs, everyone had. The villagers had no one to sell the eggs to, so when these traders came they bought it all up. These eggs were all exported. There were at least 30 families with such occupation, and they got by, but just.