Tag #138553 - Interview #78499 (Bernat Sauber)

The saccharin was the subject of another trade, because it wasn't allowed to be sold, because it was much cheaper than sugar and there was a sugar monopoly. There was a Jewish old lady in Lapos who got the saccharin smuggled in from Czechoslovakia, through Sziget. [Maramarossziget is neighboring Transcarpathia that was part of Czechoslovakia between 1920 and 1939.] She used to stand in front of her small store, always dressed in a patched, quite dirty apron, with her hands in her pockets. The dress had two pockets: back then the saccharin pills were packed in paper packages, folded into bags. Sugar was very expensive and people didn't really buy it. In Czechoslovakia sugar was cheaper, and people used to smuggle in from there the sugar exported there Romania. I was already a big boy, around 17, so I also bought saccharin from the old lady. She didn't give just to anybody, but she knew me. Saccharin didn't look like today, it was called ezeredes [thousand sweet], and looked like rice. One put two pieces in half a liter of water, and there was enough to sweeten coffee, white coffee or anything else for a whole week. It was very cheap compared to sugar, and it was very good. Then I went to Sziget: I had some poor shoes on my feet, a pair of poor trousers, a poor jacket, a poor shirt and I took a goose with me. I went to Czechoslovakia, sold the goose and from the money I got I bought myself some clothes and threw away the old ones. Food was so expensive in Czechoslovakia, that from the price of a goose one could dress oneself from head to foot.

Another person was selling rock-flint smuggled in from Czechoslovakia.