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Joseph Gringlas - January 14, 1993

Now how did, how did it come that you were taken away forwork?

Ok, now after, after liquidation, as I told you, that I was uh,working for that Hochofen.

Yeah, tell me how you came to work for Hochofen first.

How eh, first we worked, they took us, to a-if you knew, onlything I'm feeling was if you're going to work for something they're goingto hold on to you. They're going to let you stay. So I was only-I-my brotherand me we were young. The other brothers were working, they had to work forlife so they couldn't work, they went, one was a tailor and one was a carpenter,so they, they didn't work for that, in a ??? we worked, we worked, like mybrother and me worked for that Hochofen, so that's what we-that, that, theway they, we knew that the feeling that the only way to exist for awhile isto work. So I went working in the factory, started working something else,go for just take train, laying those metal for the trains to go through.

Tracks you mean?

Tracks, you put the tr...and this, I was working with that andthat was very hard working, because to, especially the clay dust digging inthe sides that the tracks. And that, that was in the factory, started withus, wo...and, and I was working that group that does tracks. But then theyneeded for the, for the-to make this metal they need a lot, to throw in theoven all kinds of material like eh, cokes, called cokes. It's, it looks likecoal but it's not, it's lighter and those what gives that heat for the oveneh, for the ovens to burn. So I unloaded-I was taken in, I, for unloadingthose cokes for the ovens. And the, the tra...the bags was so big, I was little,I was young. And I had-we-three or four people asked unloading a bag likethis, it's unbelievable. Anyway.

How many...

When, when we went back to the ghetto after working in that Hochofenand we went and they give us that few streets to live, all that group, itwas a lot of people from us that work in the factory.

You worked for Hochofen for how long?

Oh, I was there about uh, five, six months, something like that.And then.

From 1940 to...

Yeah oh, I was working before yeah, as soon as I started, notjust the time of liquida...I was working there five-because at, at liquidationif you want to go and save yourself, go to work. You couldn't get in, therewas a list that you worked there, see? You had to be working a long time tobe able to, to be-having there.

Before we go, you were supervised by German civilians...

Eh?

at Hochofen?

Is-there were Gentiles working the same as Hochofen, Gentilesworking with us. Got-everyday morning going to work and going home.

Polish.

Polish, yeah, the Gentile people were Polish.

And the supervisors were German?

Yeah, they were soldiers, you know, like...

Military.

Military guard...guarding us, you know, around the huts you werewith the guns, make sure that you're working, you know.

But did you have any civilian supervisors as well?

They Ukrainians, yeah. And eh, after being there quite awhile,eh I mean working there and wh...and then they-I was with my brother at that,that little ghetto where they, what's left of it when the people that workingat Hochofen and, and on a Sunday, they made a liqui...like, like eh, as, aAppell to get them all out, outside.