Joseph Gringlas - March 18, 1993
Return to Poland
Um, I'd like you to talk to me a little bit about your tripback to Poland. When did you go?
Went uh, last year, in June. My wife's family arranged a tripto go Czechoslovakia and uh, at that time eh, my, my wife wanted me-I shouldgo with them to, to Czechoslovakia. And I said then, then we had a meetingwith the family, my family and then they opened up a map. I said my hometownwas right there on the map. It hit me something and said if we go to Czechoslovakia,we go for a few days to Poland. And when we called my daughter and she wasalways interested in going to where I came from and also see the camp whereI was in Auschwitz. So last June we went to-we landed in Amsterdam. In Amsterdamwe went to Poland, and first thing we went in Warsaw. Eh, we came to Warsawright away we checked in hotel. First thing what did went out, we didn't stayin hotel at all, went, went right away to look. There, where it was there,the ghetto, was the ghetto, which is already-everything is, not much to see.Just a monument only, yeah. They changed-they build up, everything was builtup. But you, we could see what went on there. It was terrible. How and there'sa short, they were-went to Umschlagplatz, a place. That's a place they surroundfrom the ghetto and sent them to Auschwitz, from Warsaw ghetto. From therewe went to my hometown. Went to the ??? hometown in Warsaw. From, from Warsawwe, we went to my hometown, Ostrowiec. And we came in, I, I couldn't recognizethe town completely. So many years, fifty years almost. It was...
Did you take a train to Ostrowiec?
No we went, we rented...
Rented.
Rented a car. We came in I, I was feeling so terrible. FirstI felt terrible that came back all my memories from Poland. And secondly,I couldn't rec...because, there was a cemetery. The whole cemetery was destroyedcompletely by the Polish government. The city employ...officials. And theycut the who...they left a, a little bit of space for the grave from the, the,from the graves, they took out that eh, what do you call it, those monuments...
Mm-hm.
from the Jewish people were buried there. And they left it ona space. The rest was made a park. So I-you looked in and stranger couldn't,I couldn't find where it was, where it was. And then suddenly we talked tosome Polish guy and he said that there some from Jewish, from Jewish peoplefrom Israel came down there and they, they were fighting the government, wantedto completely destroy everything. Let us show there was a cemetery. The cemeteryby the way is 300 years old. So-but they came from, from Israel to fight thegov...the officials from my Ost...from my town. And they, they allowed toleave a little, a few gra...a few of those monuments and eh, and eh, madea fence around. And there's a sign that this was a cem...eh, Jewish cemetery.It was original from nineteen-from 1600 which is about over 300 years old.And then I was looking by the house I was born and took my daughter went up.So a woman came out.
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