Joseph Gringlas - January 14 & 22, March 18, 1993
Selections in Birkenau
While you were in Birkenau, did you, were other, do you remember seeing other trains arrive?
Yeah. I was uh, I don't know, one day I found myself working with the--unloading some big stones from a, from a truck, I don't remember exactly and I saw a train coming in. But a train which come in--came in and I heard it's from Czechoslovakia, that train looked like a passenger train. It didn't look like a train like I went, came in. 'Cause there so, like a passenger train. And they were not cooped like we were. This what I know, this was a long train and they were dressed like, probably they knew they going away, taken away, so they got themselves dressed the best what they had. Ah. Was children and family, lot of other, a lot of people were on the train, but it was mostly mixed, children and sisters and brothers, the whole families. They came from Czechoslovakia there. I saw that. And I knew exactly where they going.
Did you watch for awhile? Did you watch the selection taking place?
Eh, no, we--there was a third away from the train come in, I was away when I worked, but I knew the train going by and I saw the people through the windows, it was a big. But it's terribl...a funny thing that they were put on a--like passenger train. And it struck me something, they made them feel like they're going somewhere, going to work.
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