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Joseph Gringlas - March 18, 1993

Podgorze right?

Beg your pardon?

Podgorze? Isn't that where the ghetto was?

No, those, I'm talking about Krak...going to Synagogue.

The neighborhood in Kraków was I think the Podgorzeneighborhood, that's where the ghetto was.

Anyway, so we took a cab so we go faster. It was evening. Wecame in, almost fi...finished the service in Kraków. They-I asked them,"What, what are you so rushing with the service which just finished?" Becausethey don't want to walk at night home because they're afraid they're goingto get hurt. That's the life. Even, those are the few Jews left in Polandwhich are mostly sick people, old people. And they're even afraid to go outon the street at night. So in Kraków it would be, I think it was next,next morning we went to Auschwitz. Birkenau. Eh, arriving in Auschwitz. I,before I never seen the building. It was right in the, not far, it was threekilometer from Birkenau. That was the, going on the lag...administration fromthe SS and killings and, and the, and making all the plans. And there wasand, and there was uh, in Auschwitz we saw the special room. I think it wasnumber 17. And in front was a stone that the President from Israel came down,brought that stone from Israel for the people, the Jewish people that sufferingin that place. And then we went-after now being Auschwitz a few, few hoursthere. Should have told you, and we saw a lot of cruel things what happened,went on in Auschwitz. They having those, all those people came. Differentcases with name eh, from other cities. They told they're going to go backhome, so know which belongs to which home. Hair and a lot of glasses and shavingthings like that. It was very gruesome. It was terrible. Hanging cloth fromthe uniforms. And I said, "Marcy, see those clothes? If somebody got clotheslike this that mean he was, he wasn't selected to die right away in the gaschamber. They were still working there, in Auschwitz." And my daughter-I,I mean, you could see that the very, very, the feeling of them, my kids wasterrible, it's just. And then we went, we left Auschwitz-we went, we droveover to Birkenau, which is not far. You know, came to Birkenau, I said that'sit. That's where I was there. Saw that building with a big opening, wherethe trains went through. And then we went all the, looked to see the barrackseverything, the way it was. But the, the place where was the crematorium,was the Germans demolished it before they left. And I went around the backand I saw eh, something, a sign, there was uh, one of the leaders from theNazis. The Polish pe...government found him after the war. They brought himback there, they hanged him there. Big leader from the SS. It was unbelievableto-things happen. After so many few years, it wasn't, happened right afterthe war, but they brought him back and they-that was executed him.