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Joseph Gringlas - January 14, 1993

But what, do you remember when the, when the war started um,the first time you saw the Germans when they came in?

Yeah uh, I didn't know that, there was the war, it already startedand they told, the way, I. We were told that the English and French goingwith-help Poland so and so when they came in I didn't know, I thought maybeit's French Army. They never told us that, that the Germans already crossedmy hometown. So I remember I was out the side on my street where I lived andI walked dow...and they were marching in, the German Army and I, I was outof side on street and I saw on, on the helms?

Helmets, yeah.

Yeah, helmets, saw that signia of, uh...

The swastika.

Swastika. I knew for I looked, I knew we're in trouble. I knowwe had the Germans already in my hometown.

What was your impression? They marched into...

Terrible.

the streets.

It was a scared impression. You know, the all-mostly looked likegiants. I was a young boy, they look it up like, like giants! Like they weremarching tall guy, tall, strong man.

And were there people in the streets, greeting them?

There was no greeting, it looked, you know, like,

They were just watching.

just looking, watching them. And after that, started problems.They killing in the street. And I remember they-all the doctors, a few daysthat they came in, they locked, all Jewish doctors and lawyers were ki...takenout and killed.

Shot.

Shot to death. That was the intelligentsia, the first few daysthey, they killed them.

Were they killing Polish intelligentsia as well?

They-I remember eh, once where they, yeah, there was something,they were killing Gent...it was the heads of eh, very important eh, Gentilesfrom Ostrowiec. It was something like the partisans did something againstthe Germans, so they took out about thirty of those heads, I mean all educatedmen from Gen...Gentiles, my hometown, they hanged them. I remember exactlywhen we marched that time when I went from the factory back to the town whereI told you that place we should live, we saw them hanging on there, they showedus how they hanged on that.

So you, you were what, fourteen, fifteen?

I was, yeah.

When you saw these men hanging?

Yeah.

Did you see?

But I never knew exactly what, why they did it. But after thewar, when I went back to Poland I wa...I he...I learn about it because ofthe partisans did something, so they hanged all those Gentiles.

Did you know that they were shooting Jews? I mean did yousee it, hear it?

Yeah. There was two, I remember exactly. There was two SS meneh, head, heads from the SS from my hometown and they were eh, having themuh, their eh, dogs, German Shepherd and were, so...some Jews yeah, we hadto, had already wearing those eh, our Jude.

The armband.

Armband. And so they knew exactly who uh, if you weren't, ifthey caught you not wearing it you're going to be killed right there on thestreet. There was a special warning in the streets written on the walls. SoI-a lot of times they, they, I saw when I walking through and saw that liketwo SS men with those dogs allowing to-the dogs to go to tear apart the Jews.And then they took out guns and killing. I saw right on the, on that, on thestreet killed.