Joseph Gringlas - January 14 & 22, March 18, 1993
Religion
Any, any specific moments that you remember with your father, as with the one time with your mother?
Yeah, I remember father--I was, as I said, I was very close and, and uh, and, and my brothers were, I told you, he was not fanatically but he was religious, my father and the younger one, like eh, my brother and me were still going on with the, taking ca...Saturdays and everything. And other, older brothers were just trying to show away from that uh, you know, keeping Shabbos and that, so they was, was--had bad feeling about it too.
Were there arguments?
There was arguments, sure. Arguments worse.
They were more modern.
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't, like. But eh, uh.
You said one uncle was very Orthodox.
Yeah, one uh, my brother's uh, my father's brother--uncle was eh, Orthodox. And every Saturday aft...you know in cheder you, every week you, you learn a different sed...seder. So we--and he was, I mean I came there in the afternoon then--I had to do the whole seder there, everything.
Right.
Yeah and he listened to me and eh, I was, I was very use...good, the school, cheder too. Every uh, Sunday that, when he started the seder I took a few--an hour going through seder and I, I knew already, you know. And uh, and my rabbi used to come to this--to that, to my father when we had this business and said that I'm doing very well in, in cheder. So there was a good feeling that I was doing alright.
You said that his, his beard was shaved.
Yeah, his beard wasn't shaved, it was a short beard.
But your, your uncle, you said...
Oh, my uncle, yeah, my uncle was, my uncle.
And then they shaved the beard.
Yeah, my uncle had a long beard. Grey beard. And uh, when the Germans came in uh, during the war and they caught him on the street and they cut ha...cut off the beard. And after he got very sick about it and he died.
Do you remember seeing him without his beard? Did you see him after that?
I don't--no, I don't remember seeing him. He lived away from us. I don't know. But I remember always, but I knew what was going on, we heard about it.
And you said you knew your mother's mother.
Yeah, my mother's, my grandmother.
Do you have any recollections of your grandmother?
Oh, she was very sick at that time. And she was living with another aunt, with my mother's sister. And they were--they had a big house and she lived with them. At that time I remember she was very sick.
Did you ever talk to her, do you remember what she?
Uh, not much because she was so old, quite old and sick.
And that was the only grandparent you knew.
Mm-hm.
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