[18] I walk through the market on Leszno Street. Ear-splitting shouts and [. . .] daze me: “Saccharine, saccharine, saccharine. Cigarettes, cigarettes. Ayersemmel, ayersemmel.54 Eggs, eggs.” There is a boom for saccharine today. I hear prices: 12 zlotys for 500 pieces. The today’s price in stores is 20 zlotys. I take a look. The packaging looks fine. So does the inscription “Süsstoff.”55 The colour, packaging, font, and wording all seem original. I buy some and at home I discover that it is a cheap, bungled, and poisonous fake.
I notice the following text in a stall on the same market: “Enrilo coffee 28 zlotys per kilo.” This is the best substitute aside from the Extra brand. It costs 35 zlotys in “honest” stores. I buy it and at home I discover that it is a cheap fake of the substitute with a very skilfully falsified packaging and print.
I buy cigarettes: [brands like] Mewa, Egipskie, Sporty. All “made in the ghetto.” I get back a 50-grosz coin in change—a primitively and sloppily falsified piece of tin. At the same market I was given not only that fake coin, but also a counterfeit 20-zloty banknote. Fake postcards and postal stamps bring little profit. Bread is sprinkled with talcum powder to make it whiter. Saccharine is added to rolls to make them sweet. The Bomowicz baked goods make the most of the popularity of the Bojmowicz company.56 Tobacco—cut, home-grown leaves, often mixed with hay. Not long ago you could buy wedges of cheese in yellow packaging. It was quite tasty. Its fakes appeared on the market after a week. They looked original but tasted awful and upset your stomach. Honey, candy, marmalade, soap—whenever a decent substitute appears on the market, its fakes make the most of its popularity. It is the irony of our life that the orgy of substitutes means nothing. For an original substitute is a valuable thing nowadays. The real problem is that we are sinking under a wave of fake ersatzes.
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And now a few words about fakes in the cultural sphere.
Obviously, all kinds of documents are falsified for practical reasons: birth certificates, passports, registration books, IDs, receipts, diplomas, certificates,
