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Joseph Gringlas - January 14, 1993

So you were, you were in Birkenau and you were worried thatthere was no work.

Yeah. No work. Then they co...somebody eh, from the Gruppen SScame out, a German and he came out, we need for, for making, for making some...doingsomething, flowers, this was in there to make it look nice, inside flowers.And they called who's a gardener. I had learn in Poland I was eh, I was taughthow to do farming and flowers and so I said, "Yes, I am a, I can do flowers."And I volunteered to do, I want to do something. So they took me to work andwhen I got that job of putting flowers in the ground. So I get double pieceof butter and double portion of bread because of that. It was wonderful atthat time in Birkenau to get a double portion. So I, I worked on the flowersfor them and they liked it the way I did it. And then there was a lot of people-asI explained, there was a lot of other people didn't work. And they steppedon the flowers. So when they came out, the guy said, "What you doing, whydidn't?" And they were, I think this was a, one of the civilians from us,I mean from the, the, he was a Kapos. Told you what to do. And he said, "Lookwhat you have to do, watch it what they're doing." So he gave me a big stickand you have to hit him, hit him because they shouldn't go to step on. Nobodyin the world would believe I took the stick and gave back that Kapo. I said,"Not me. I'm not going to hit anybody." And, and so I lost my double portionfood and double bread. It's unbelievable. Because you feel like people arehungry they would do anything.

Mm-hm.

I couldn't, I couldn't take a stick and hitting the people there.I know what, what they're there for. So, I lost that wo...the job from workand doing with the flowers. And then I worked uh, on a different, unloading.I, they were looking for something to do but it wasn't, you could see therewas no, this was not for people to work there. It was just waiting to be finished.