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Joseph Gringlas - January 22, 1993

You did tell me that what you used to think about sometimeswas that it would be better not to wake up in the morning.

Yeah, that eh, in Birkenau it was, you always said oh, hope thatyou don't wake up would be-this would be wonderful. That we-even though youknow what's happening to you, just fade out. But, didn't happen.

At age-you were sixteen when you were in, in Birkenau?

In, in Birkenau? I was about, yeah, fifteen, sixteen.

Um, you had already seen lots of people hung-shot?

Mm-hm.

Beaten?

Yeah. I was working, I think it was in Buna. Some boys, somebodycame out, Kapo, with a shovel, over their heads. It's like-killed them withinstant.

When that happened, what, what did you do? I mean did youlook? Did you ignore it?

No eh, you had to work. If they came in, maybe somebody didn'twork at that moment, you just would do it.

And you saw it.

Yeah, I saw it right next, not far from me.

And you just, and you just kept on working.

You just kept, you kept working, nervous, when you saw what happened,you thought maybe it's going be next-you. But it did, most of the time yousaw when they came in, you saw somebody at the time not doing the work whathe's supposed to do. That was it.

I get the feeling that, that now, that bothers you. That youdid that.

Oh sure.

Can you tell me why?

Why? I guess uh, I guess going through a hell like this, youcan't get out of it. It's impossible to be like healed that you should forgeteverything, you should. You, like you can start-okay, we came to this country,we-wonderful country, we feel good concept, but something missing. Somethingmissing. You have no, you have no family and you went through hell. You, you,your nervous system is, is not the way it should be. Everything you thinkbothers you-everything you hear something going wrong it bothers you. It's,I think that's from that...

From that experience.

experience.