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Joseph Gringlas - January 22, 1993

Um, let me take you ahead a little bit now. You remember,you said it was on a Saturday night, you went back to the factory in Ostrowiec-toHochofen and you knew that you weren't going to see your family again. Whathappened before you left? Did you talk to them?

Yeah, that evening that we had a, had a feeling in the housethat that's what's going to come. Sunday morning they're gonna take all theJews out and gonna send them away and I was working at night shift going.So I knew that uh, that was terrible, there was a terrible feeling. I lookedat my parents and then I left. And I had a, exact...I had a feeling that that'sit. I won't be able to see anymore.

Did you say anything?

Yeah, we talk about it, but we cou...we couldn't help each other,couldn't do anything about it. That's the first thing-your, your father seesthat I'm going away, he's not going to see me and I know eh, I know I'm notgoing to see him anymore and you can't do anything about it. [pause] It wasa uh, like a feeling, a, a scary feeling's coming like, you know, you'd besurrounded and you'd be sent away.

So there was no goodbye then. Was it?

No, there was no goodbye or anything. No, not like this. Just,just looking in their, between, look on your faces between your parents, youcould se...feel it, that, you know, I went out ??? to the factory.

Um, did you, you were with your brother in the factory though.

Yeah, the-as I told you, my brother was in day shift and afterthe, the Aussiedlung what you call it, sending away the people, he was onthe list. He was there, so they took him. I, I didn't see him 'til next dayin the evening, Sunday evening.

And did he tell you what happened?

Yeah, he told me that, he told me what happened that uh, theywere sent away. And a lot of people, it was tumult you know in the marketa lot of older Jews came out. And they got them out and, and surrounded withUkrainian with the guns. And uh, and I, I and I was start...when I saw himin the evening I start crying. It was, it must have been a few hours 'tilI, I could get myself to quiet down, because I knew what, what happened.

And your brother Yakov? He disappeared?

Yeah, the-my brother, so, he was during the war the soldier wentto the war. He, we, we had a lot of friends coming from my hometown that hesaw him that uh, the war was over, the fighting was over and we, we countedthe days coming, he never came back.

Did you think that you were going to find him after the war?

I, I had a-I would say the percentage of thinking somebody wouldfind him was very slim. But I thought about him more than about other onesbecause he was eh, life after the fight in, with the Germans. But maybe hegot, because a lot of Jewish people went to Russia too. So that's somethingI hope. Maybe, maybe he saved himself. But never heard from him.