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Joseph Gringlas - January 14, 1993

How did they do that? Did they call everybody out?

Yeah. They-we knew that something had happened. How did we knew,they, they at the time when they liqui...they're going to send people outfrom the, Blizyn, they surround with military-that was military with tanksin the morning. So nobody escaped from there. And we had, there was a feelingalready that the Russians going in the, get...getting after the Germans andthey're getting closer to, to Poland. So eh, they starting liquidate Blizyn.So in the morning they surround...they took us out from the barrack in they-onthe Pla... Platzappell and they counted us and then what we saw right awaythere was-those were military. Those were not citiz...military soldiers, Germans.'Cause they needed a lot of more to guard us. So there was most of the gunsjust pointing at us, like this. What are they going to give, give us-killus, but no they want to take, watch u...they guard us, that we go over tothe train. And the train went to Kielce through the woods. And suddenly wehear guns. Yeah, at the trains we're loading, they loaded us on the trains.

Was this the first time you were on a train? Had you, hadyou uh, gotten to Blizyn on a train as well?

Yeah, I think that Blizyn, yeah, it was, I was.

Or by truck?

No, was I think trucks. I can't remember. But from Blizyn togo and they took us up from Blizyn it was on trains, from Blizyn to goingto Birkenau-Auschwitz quite awhile because...

What kind of trains? Cattle cars?

The train was uh, uh, like wagons, but not passenger, it waslike, uh.

Cattle cars.

Cattle train...

What was it like...

And they would.

in the train?

It was, they put us in a lot of, lot of in the train, uh.

What was it like in the train?

Eh, like train like you, commercial trains like loading any coalsor metals, trains like that. And they put us together and on the, on top ofthe train was SS sitting with a gun-machine gun. And we're going through bythe eh, going with the train from, from Blizyn to Birkenau-Auschwitz. Therewas fighti...in the tr...going through, through the, through the trees, throughthe woods, we heard fighting like comi...like somebody shooting at the SS.And, and oh, I said now it was partisans hitting the train. And we thoughtwe happ...we were happy. Maybe we were going to liberated right there. ButI guess the power-they overpowered them and train went through to Blizyn...

How long...

to Auschwitz.

how long did it take to get to get from Blizyn to Auschwitz?

Blizyn to Auschwitz it took uh, let's, if I remember exactlyit was quite a few hours.

But not overnight?

Not overnight. It was during day light.