Josef Wawrzacz

“There was 96 % alcohol and 98 % alcohol. It came in one-liter and half-liter bottles. The half-liter ones were sold the most. And then the small quarter-liter ones. From half a liter one could make a liter and a half of fine spirit. It was sold for a good price. When I did it half a liter cost fifty-five crowns. In the past it may have been thirty-five. People made Vařonka out of it. Caramelized sugar mixed with boiled water and that spirit. When the spirit was mixed with honey, it was called mjodula. The Polish often mixed the alcohol with raspberry syrup. And then it was consumed.”

“Some Polish people had a field or a meadow on the Czech side of the border and some of our farmers had their estate in Poland. On the border there was a small customs house where a single soldier allowed the farmers across the border based on an agricultural permit. Out of the Hrčava people the Stojaspáls, Haratycs and Kinžors for instance had their fields in Poland. There were quite a number of them. In the morning they harnessed the horses, went across the customs house where they checked them and then went on to the field.”