Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Joseph Gringlas - January 14 & 22, March 18, 1993

Conditions in Blizyn

People were shot?

Yeah, people were shot. Somebody trying to escape. I remember in Blizyn somebody trying to escape and they brought, they caught him and brought him and they--and I saw two Ukrainian guards hitting him, hitting as so that he was fainting out, he was almost finished. Then they took water on him to revive him and hit him again. That was in Blizyn. It was quite a view. Another incident I remembered was two--my hometown, brothers in Blo...in Blizyn and they, I, I think their name is Pfeffer, very rich people and he saw, he was standing next to me and he saw his brother taken out and killed by the Ukrainian. So Blizyn was terrible. It was, it was a terrible--it was, to me, it was just being young it was just unbelievable to survive it.

You were fifteen years old?

Yeah.

L...l...let me ask you a question about, you said that the food was, there was no food.

There was only piece--there was a bread divided about, I imagi...about eight or ten people, one bread.

Who divided the bread?

It's from, from us, they gave out, everybody had a, a group and divided.

Did they, did they...

Yeah.

...appoint somebody to divide the bread?

Yeah, uh-huh.

Who, then everybody watched, is that what happened?

Oh yeah, everybody was afraid of getting sma...smaller than other one. It was terrible.


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