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Joseph Gringlas - January 22, 1993

Um, uh, I, I was struck last time we talked that you emphasizedwhat the, what the value system under the Germans was. You either worked oryou died. If you didn't work then you weren't worth, you weren't worthy oflife somehow. Is that correct?

About the German people?

When you, when you lived, when the Germans came to Ostrowiecand then every, every subsequent...

Oh there was...

experience. If you didn't work, you were done. Right? Forexample when you were in the...

Eh, before that-before, I mean right after uh, they came in,they took you to work to helping them cleaning the streets, snow eh, removal.For their own-for the military, something helping out. But they let you go.They, you can get-got back to home. They always took you. And they, they werealways coming in looking for Jude. We had-sometimes we were hiding in closets.They were looking and some of the Poles gave up too, a lot of Jews. So those,but they took you to work that time was not, but you know that you're goingto come back. And then later on we hear that they're taking groups away tolabor camps. Before that big things, that big-sending to Auschwitz, they tookto labor camps. Like in the wars, they took them to dig ditches. We knew it,but we knew that they didn't, never came back. So they were, terr...therethe family lost ??? people. But then later on they starting to eh, takingall the Jews out and sending them to all the camps. That was the, they liquidatedthe Jewish people in Europe.

But you, but you seemed to know that as long as you couldwork, you had a...

Yeah.

chance to survive.

It eh, I felt that as long as you're working they're going touse you out. They, then you're going to stay-live awhile.

And you said that after the x-rays, when they...

Yeah.

didn't take you out to work anymore, you thought that wasit.

That was it, yeah.

That, so that system of either you work or you're, or you'redead.

Yeah.

Do you think that you carried that with you after the war,that work-you said keeping busy was.

Yeah, keeping busy you forget about your, your problem. You putyourself in, your life. Like, I go-like taking class and, and painting, watercolors. It, it keeps your mind busy, especially when you're retired, you know,you got so much time, you know.

But when you first came to the United States, did you feellike you had to work, work, work?

Yeah, oh yeah, I uh, you want to-first you want to go to work,you know you have to do something to make a living. So I went-like I learneda profession in electronics. So yeah, I wanted to work. It was-but still alot of times, there was still depressions and uh, it was, it was not a smoothlife.