Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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

Family

How large was your family?

My family--we are, we had five, five in--my family was eight. Six, six children and father and mother

And...

one daugh...one sister I had and five, five brothers.

And where were you in the family, middle child?

I was the youngest one.

The youngest one?

Yeah.

Uh, and what about aunts and uncles? Grandparents?

Oh, we had uncles, had uncles uh, my, my, my mother's side, uncles was, was two sisters her family in Ostrowiec. And then she had, she had two--three brothers in United States at the time. They left a long time before the war. So they lived in United States. And there were cousins, a lot of cousins in family.

And y...your father's side?

Father's side was ano...yeah, he had uh, one uh, brother, my uncle and uh, son and, and other son with two s...two, two sons. But uh, my uncle was uh, he was older than my father. At the time the Nazis came in, then, then he was very religious--they cut his beard. And after that he got so sick and he died. So he died just during the occupation--the German occupation. And there was another brother from my father's side--he died, an older one, before the war.

Okay. What are your brothers' and sisters' names?

My broth...elder brother is Mendel. There is Jake, Yakov and Schloimo and my sister Bila and my brother, which is still living now in United States, is Sol and me.

And do you remember your uncles' names and your aunts' names?

Oh yes, I remember uncles because one of my older, my older, one of the older brothers eh, Carbin, he worked for the uncles, so I remember him. The family had cousins.


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