Joseph Gringlas - January 14 & 22, March 18, 1993
Aid Agencies
And when you came to Detroit, so you--Jewish Family Service helped...
Helped out, they...
The Jewish Vocational Service. Did they get you a job?
Yeah, Vocational Service uh, about a job getting.
So where did you work?
I worked in neighbors' called Rosenfeld Electronics. Eh, they sold appliance and I was, I was still not telling eh, mostly It was radio in Germany so we came starting television, so we just like a beginning.
Mm.
And I worked eh, going on antennas, the ropes for putting on.
And w...were the agencies helpful, I mean...
Yeah and then he had to go, like social service go every, every few weeks just discussing how things progressing.
For a counseling.
Yeah, Mm-hm.
Do you remember the counselor's name? Do you remember the name of the counselor?
Name, name, I can't eh, those. I'm very bad at names and, uh.
A woman?
I remember her name.
A man or a woman?
Women, mostly women, women, yeah.
Not just this one person, several different people.
There's a young, this was a young uh, girl. She was work in the office that, from the Jewish Social Service. And then after awhile there was an older woman and she was, you know, she was going through how you--how we doing with, helping out, whatever. We need a lot of help coming to this country. Especially we didn't have any financial things and I--that was a wonderful thing that somebody took care of those people.
Did any of them ever ask you--what--you didn't talk to Mrs. Foyer did you, a woman named Foyer?
Mrs. Foyer, yeah I know, Ms. Foyer we eh, we always went with me to, I mean that was later on, we...
Later.
...good ??? operation.
Right.
Ms. Foyer took a lot of...
Did any of those counselors talk to you about your experiences? Did they want to hear about that? The Jewish Family Service people. The, um...
Not much.
They didn't want to know.
Not they didn't want, they probably hate reading about it, but in that, but, eh.
But they wanted to know what was going on now...
Yeah.
...and how you were coping.
Yeah, how you progressing, to getting to your life, normal life.
So how did you meet people here? Did they help? Did you meet other Jews?
Eh, met, but I mean eh, mostly with the family, uh. It was good feeling because my brother was here. It felt like, you know, you go in the house, you felt something like, it remind you of your home, you know, you had somebody from your home. That was a good feeling.
Did you live in the same house?
Not--no. I lived in a different--I had my own, different room. A boarding--that what--was social service.
They found an apartment...
Yes.
...a room.
On Elmhurst I remember it was.
Um, near the Jewish Community Center.
Mm-hm. Yeah, the Jewish Community Center was at that time on Woodward. Woodward and Lester?
Right, not far from Elmhurst.
Yeah, not too far. But we took buses. We went always by bus, we want to go some place.
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