Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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

And your brother was now married.

My brother got married in, in Landsberg in kibbutz.

What, what, what was, what was the wedding like?

Oh, the wedding was really unbelievable. You know uh, they--the boys and girls went to the villages, brought flowers for the wedding and they, they had special food prepared, for the evening food. And eh, my, my sister ??? had an uncle still living after the war. And that uncle, I eh, talked to him, he was in Blizyn in the, working in the, Blizyn in the, in the furniture and boxes--so I met him there. And uh, the wedding was a lot of people and a lot of songs and very, it was a happy occasion, to see that after war, what we went through with somebody, my brother got married and. Very, good feeling about it.

Was there more?

A lot of more what?

I mean what, just, just the wedding, what. Was it altogether happy?

Yeah, it was a happy occasion. It was uh, it was a happy occasion and still you felt.

It was a happy occasion.

It was a happy occasion, dancing, you know.

But...

Yeah, for us.

...you were saying, but still what?

But still it was that you had a feeling that we don't have our family to share with it. But uh, and another, in another way I said--I felt--listen I was a lucky one to survive with a brother because some families there was none left. So it was very close, my brother.

You've had lots of happy occasions since.

After the war?

Yeah. I mean you had.

I wouldn't say happy occasions, you know, but there were some nice occasions.

But I mean since then you've had children, your children are married, you've had.

Oh, you mean after coming to United States? Yeah.

Uh, are they also the same? They're happy, still there's something not altogether.

You mean now? Being with the family? We are very happy.

When you go--when you went to--when you're at a wedding, when you were at your daughter's wedding.

Yeah.

Um.

I was very happy.

You were very happy.

I felt.

As you should have been. But what, does anything come back, the way it did for the other wedding, I mean?

Yeah, always the wedding I was happy in, in a certain, my way, I said my parents didn't live to see that. But like, you know, like uh, a grandchild, getting married. It was always in my mind back of that. You, you can't, you can't forget it, you, that you have had somebody, you're not al...you had, you were some other family and you don't have them with you, when you need--when you need them. When you want there to be a. So it's always in mind about it. Even when you are happy, but still back on, it brings you back there.