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Joseph Gringlas - January 14, 1993

Uh, when do you think you heard about um, what was happeningin Germany before the war? Did-was there any talk in your house...

Yeah, there were.

about politics?

Oh we always read papers. Forward was our paper in the house.And uh, so we read what was going on in Germany, what, what happened to Jewishpeople. It was-I ass...before the 1938 yet, before they marched in Czecho...Sudetenlandthey took over the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland the Germans. We knew this wasgoing on with the policies against the Jewish people. But we-a, a few weeksbefore the war we didn't believe that. Nobody could believe that uh, theywould go in and just liquidate the Jewish people, like gas them or you know.Nobody could imagine something like that would happen to-could happen to pe...humanbeing.

Did you know the war was coming? Did you think that therewas going to be a war?

Eh, yeah, because we knew that Germans started in Czechoslovakiathere's going to be a war because it didn't-we knew that we didn't. It wasso powerful, build up this machinery and we read about it, how strong theyare, that, that this was not just this, just Sudetenland because Czechoslovakiagave it to the Germans. It's not, this is going to be stopped. It-he's gotappetite to take over a lot of, mo...many, many more countries in Europe.And then before, start, before the war with Poland it was terrible-just feltthat if we gotten out, there's no place to go and, and we know what's comingto us. But we didn't, we knew it was going to be terrible but, cause he was,Hitler was against the Jews all the time for years, not just before the war.So we know it's coming, but nobody expected that we're not going to be, they'regonna, they're gonna kill us, you know. They're going to send us to laborcamps, that they're going to liquidate the Jewish people, send them to gaschambers. No, nobody could realize something like this, could think that that'sgoing to happen. But there was no way out, there was nowhere to go, nowhere-placeto.

Anybody talk about Palestine? Were any of your family Zionists?

Eh, no there was no Z...ever, were not.

Was anybody, was there a Zionist movement in?

Oh yeah, the Zionist movement, Zionist groups, young groups,was always, but, eh.

But your family-what, stayed away from them?

Uh, I was young. And other and other brothers were busy at workand I don't think they. Yeah, my father be...belonged to Verein. You know,from Verein?.

Yeah.

For the workers, Verein.

Was he was Bundist?

No, not Bundist...

He was just...

just eh, for-'cause he was working, a worker like that.

Um, so it was a skilled workers Verein? The shoemakers unionmaybe?

Yeah, I would say, yeah eh, could, like, he was, like somebody'dcome in when, after his shoes made and do it, yeah. And uh, but mostly weuh, my father's business was eh, we, to...we went, we went to Warsaw. Andfrom Warsaw we bought the best used shoes, you know, in the big city, in theprovince, my hometown, Ostrowiec. And then we sell in, in market. And I usedto go on vac...on vacation time, there was before the war that, I was school,going still in school, before I w...so I was, I was able to go without, youknow like if you go with your father you're allowed, you can go with yourfather. So-and then other time going my father to Warsaw and buying shoes.And...

Did you go to Lublin a lot, as well?

No. Lublin, I had, Lublin I had a cousin living from my mother'sside. There was a cousin living in Lublin. But never went to Lublin, Lublin.