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Joseph Gringlas - January 14, 1993

Between his legs?

From the legs. I ran through it. And, and I was scared terriblebecause I know he's going-in the Appell they we...I had been, I was called.And that evening, every evening we had to go out in Blizyn, Appell he countedwe are all there, if nobody escape. So I was, they would call me up, my, Ihad a number. At that time there was no uniform. There was by the number,I think 167, number white and number down by my knee. And they called, heknew it, my number and he asked the other boy was stay there, in the, whenI run away from him. He, he asked him who, who I was and probably gave himthe number too, why he was scared too, so at the Appell five o'clock in theevening when we stayed in Appell. My number was called and I knew, when, Iknew anytime they called you out, anytime something happened, they calledyou out from the group there was a ??? surrounded by woods at Blizyn and theUkrainian, two Ukrainians with the guns loaded and taken out in the woodsto be killed. So I knew exactly, this is my end. But I don't know what happened.They told that and there was in the-I was hit, I wa...that, that, the headof the uh, Blizyn, the SS man told-he was telling what, to kill, to go inthe, in the, in the woods to be killed and I was given twenty-five on my tush.He...

Twenty-five?

he said it, at Appell.

With a wooden cane?

Yeah, with uh, with uh, you know that leather.

A leather strap.

Yeah. You know and I-they brought up two chairs in front, infront of Appell. Everybody saw it. And I was-had to let down my pants andthere and there was two Jew...the Jewish policemen were doing it. The headof Jewish policeman of the group. One was hitting one side, twenty-five, thathead of the SS man told to give me twenty-five. So he, that one was hittingone side and one the other side, the two Jewish policeman. And I, after twenty-five,gotten pun...lashes, I went in that barrack, barrack and laid down on, I couldn'ton front-my stomach, cause I was bleeding like, like it's, it was like edgesin my tush, there was bleed, bleed, blood coming out. And I was scream...Iwas crying terrible. This wa...I'll never forget that. [pause] And then Iwas all the time in Blizyn working, I mean.

Did you go to work after that?

I, I couldn't work, I couldn't-laid down a few hours, but

You mean the next...

yeah...

day you were working, the next day?

next day I had to go work otherwise, you couldn't stay in. Ifyou stay in they're going to kill you. So I had to work. And.