Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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

You never found out what happened.

Never. I--we sent uh, during the war even. I--after--when was it, I mean I sent, we sent to Red Cross to find out about him. Didn't get any--nothing.

Any other last recollections of your family life, w...up to the time that you were all separated?

Recollection. Eh, uh, my other brother, he was a tailor, Schloimo. And he uh, mostly I remember for, for Pesach special, he made suits. So, you know and so we just, it was a good feeling that my brother's making a suit for myself, you know and. I always liked to be dressed up nice and. That made me feel that it would be good, that I made a spec...like good at make a special order or something. And, and we and I remember eh, my, my, my, my father, I remember he was dressed up always very neat and my--when, when we used to go out my older, Mendel, my oldest brother they looked like brothers. My father kept himself very young like--young looking. And that we talking about the other, the tailor, even got married before the war. And uh, and he was sent out when they sent all the Jews away. He was sent away because he was working still, he still buy, somebody tailoring. So he--like I did, when I was young, I was trying to get work in like a factory, there was something holding on or something then the Germans wouldn't send me regular away. But my older brother...which the Germans, like, like you said, those were used for Germans what made in like ammunition or metal or something they--just what they need. And that my other brother they worked like tailor or any other things. They were taken right away at the Umsiedeln.

Same time...

Same time, yeah.

...as your parents.

But I told you about, about my par...I mean after the Aussiedlung was over and my, eh and we were in the factory and then this--we couldn't stay in the factory, there was no place to stay. So they give us uh, like a street we staying and when we came there, a few days after we went there, I would hear that somebody saw my father, my sis...my d...uh, sister, my mother was hiding. They didn't go out they--that Sunday which all the Jews supposed to go out. But they went, sent away, after the few days they were sent away, so I didn't see them. Somebody told me they, a few hours before we came to that street in that little ghetto where they made for the people working on the factory, that somebody saw them. They were sent away.

So they were among the last to go?

Yeah, they, they, they--it was like they were hidden about a few days, about three or four days.

You think they hid in their house? Is that what...

Probably. But uh, didn't have no chance there to go out.

Now let me jump ahead.

Okay.

You, you were put on a train to Auschwitz.

From, from Blizyn.

From Blizyn...

Yeah.

...to Auschwitz.

Birkenau.

Um, and you, you said you traveled h...h...hours on the train, in the box car.

Yeah.