The Cooperatives: The Social Insurance & The Living Conditions

The Social Insurance

   Social insurance was poorly provided for in Yugoslavia and in Beschka.  For the employee, for example, for housing aid the prescribed compulsory insurance for illness was often avoided.  The housing aid was as a rule for the young and healthy, whereas they themselves were mostly not concerned about their insurance.  The continuing payment of wages in the case of illness was only given to officials, so that illness was often a great need not covered yet.  When the savings were used up, the only help there was the family and only in the worst need did the community help.  Old people had to be supported by their children because no fortune existed.

The Living Conditions

     Only a very small part of the people of Beschka were without their own home.  It was not always the poorest who did not have their own home since there were also some who lived in one house with their parents.

   The 2058 Germans who lived in Beschka according to the 1931 census, lived in 460 homes.  On the average each home was occupied by four to five people.  The smallest home was not under 50 square meters in size.  As a rule the small homes had one room which was 20 to 25 square meters, a chamber with 18 to 20 square meters and a kitchen with 15 to 20 square meters.  In addition there was a covered corridor of 20 square meters or more.  Many homes had a cellar.  As a rule people lived and slept in one room, so then there was enough living space.  The chamber was an “extra room”.  In the summer there was a covered summer kitchen as well.

   Despite the good living conditions and possibilities even the fortunate farmers often slept two in a bed, and often this was the bedroom and the living room at the same time, because the precious furnished living room often only served as cold splendor.  Surplus rooms were as a rule furnished with beds.  Here were the (Federzeug?) feathery things? already piled up high for the trousseaus in the childhoods of the girls.  Then when a girl reached marriage age, the dowry was already cared for a long time and was so also for the poor.  

   In many homes there was a yard in the area of the living spaces from behind the work yard separated by a fence and enchanted in a flower garden.  The chrysanthemums thrived especially well.  Also, the open, often glass covered corridor was protected against the sun’s glare by climbing plants.  In the corridor people lived in the summer.

   The homes of the poor were stamped with clay.  The outside walls were made of burnt bricks hip high.  Some floors were made of clay, which were “washed up” each week.  Floorboards were painted with oil colors.  In some homes there were also parquet floors or linoleum.   (Strangula?) were unknown.  The walls were painted or whitened with chalk.  There were no longer any thatched roofs in Beschka in my time.  They were expensive because they often had to be replaced.  However, until World War I there were still thatched roofs which were very artistic and were made respectably.

   The baking ovens made of clay or tile which were dangerous, were a square meter large and as high as a man.  It often stood in the living room and was heated from the outside with straw, corn stalks, or grapevines.  It radiated a comfortable even warmth.  It was heated twice daily which was also enough in the most bitter cold.  Once a week the best bread was baked in it.  Understandably each woman knew how to bake bread.  In the baking oven delicious roasts and potatoes were also tastefully prepared with or without a dish (Tepskrumbeere).   

[Published at DVHH.org by Jody McKim Pharr, 2005]

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