Joseph Gringlas Interview The following is an interview with Mr. Joseph Gringlas at his home in Farmington Hills, Michigan on the morning of January 14, 1993. The interviewer is Sidney Bolkosky. Uh, could you tell me your name please and where you’re from? My name is Joseph Gringlas and I am from Ostrowiec witokrzyski, Poland. Tell me where is that near? It’s near Lublin and Karotz. [person speaks in background] Okay. There you are. Um, tell me what you remember about life in Ostrowiec before the war. What was your family life like and life in the town? The town before the war, we had uh, we had uh, like a business, shoe business selling in market. It was twice a week. And uh, that was our life like, life like from then, for my father in the shoe business. How big was the town? The town was about, about 32,000 people. It was about half—15,000 people was Jewish people. And where I live it was like close to the market. It’s either like belo...like be—like uh, it was only Jews living there that you didn’t see any Gentiles. But you see in, when they went to church, they come out of church, the church was right close to the market, we felt that, that we living, not the Jews not alone living. We living in—surrounded by enemies. You felt that they were enemies? Was there anti-Semitism in Ostrowiec? The anti-Semitism was very big in Poland. It was a long time anti-Semitism and before the war it was worse. They started telling, you shouldn’t go to buy merchandise from the Jewish people and there was big plaque on the, on the © The Regents of the University of Michigan 1 The University of Michigan-Dearborn http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu Joseph Gringlas Interview streets hanged, shouldn’t eh, should avoid—have any contact, any business with the Jewish people. Did—your father was a shoemaker? A shoemaker and we’re, also we’re selling shoes. Did he have any non-Jewish customers? Oh, we had a lot of non-Jewish customers. I wouldn’t say all were, were bad, but, some were good, but mostly bad. You didn’t see too many good ones because the, the other ones were so many, against the Jewish people. In—as I remember, in school, we went to school before the war You went to public school? Yeah, went to public school and I finished public school just 1939 when the war broke out. What was it like in school? In school it was terrible. It was just eh, you felt that, that you’re not welcome there. You’re just like, like you’re not in your own country. Like you are somebody—a stranger. And after the, after finish school you were going home, the stones thrown at you. It’s just unbelievable. Like, things like that in a country where you were born and raised. Uh, did you got to cheder too? Yeah, I went to cheder uh, that was right at market, cheder was close from home. And all the time when special Sundays—I’ll never forget it, when every time I ever went out to cheder and especially even it was the winter time when the days were short and at night when it gets dark. So I, as soon I went out, I went out, I © The Regents of the University of Michigan 2 The University of Michigan-Dearborn http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu Joseph Gringlas Interview finished going home, walking home, I was hit. They came out from church and hit because you are a Jew, you know. And as a young boy I didn’t know why, why does this happen to me? And that built up terrible feeling and like, scared, you know. Then your own country. Did you discuss this with your—I mean was there any discussion about anti- Semitism in your house? Oh, there was, oh yeah, always discussing. Did you come home and say I was hit today? Yeah, uh huh. And what happened? That would happen, what can you do? You gonna call the police? Gonna tell anything? If anything happen to you, you call the police, they would n…never showed up. But this is, you know, you got in—you got in building yourself that that’s the way life is. You can’t do anything about it. It’s, you have to accept it, you live there in this country, this is the way it is. Did you have any non-Jewish friends? Oh yes, I had Jewi...non-Jewish friend. Quite a few. In school, you know, felt like that, those are the one which is close to you. Did you play soccer? Play—soccer was my—I was crazy about soccer. So you made friends maybe playing soccer. Yeah, playing soccer. But mostly in soccer playing we had, Jewish friends close we live together. I have a brother too. He’s alive and still after the war. And we © The Regents of the University of Michigan 3 The University of Michigan-Dearborn http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu Joseph Gringlas Interview played, he’s four years older than me. So we always played in the friends from cheder or school and get together after the school and we played soccer. This was my—I, I loved it very much. With w…w…these non-Jewish friends, did you ever go to their houses or did they ever come to yours? Eh, non-Jewish friends, the place where they lived, the landlord was, was, was non-Jewish, was gentile. So with the daughter, I remember her and we went to school. Now she was very, the parents were anti-Semitic terrible, we knew it. But she was not. And she even spoke Jewish like I—better than me. But she, some, they understood, they felt different. Why should they treat people differently than the parents, was they can tell, educate them how to, the Jews are and get them to be against Jewish people. There were some. They were nice. But you felt the an...the hostility. Oh yes, any place you went, yeah. How large was your family? My family—we are, we had five, five in—my family was eight. Six, six children and father and mother And… one daugh...one sister I had and five, five brothers. And where were you in the family, middle child? I was the youngest one. The youngest one? Yeah. © The Regents of the University of Michigan 4 The University of Michigan-Dearborn http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu Joseph Gringlas Interview Uh, and what about aunts and uncles? Grandparents? Oh, we had uncles, had uncles uh, my, my, my mother’s side, uncles was, was two sisters her family in Ostrowiec. And then she had, she had two—three brothers in United States at the time. They left a long time before the war. So they lived in United States. And there were cousins, a lot of cousins in family. And y…your father’s side? Father’s side was ano...yeah, he had uh, one uh, brother, my uncle and uh, son and, and other son with two s...two, two sons. But uh, my uncle was uh, he was older than my father. At the time the Nazis came in, then, then he was very religious—they cut his beard. And after that he got so sick and he died. So he died just during the occupation—the German occupation. And there was another brother from my father’s side—he died, an older one, before the war. Okay. What are your brothers’ and sisters’ names? My broth...elder brother is Mendel. There is Jake, Yakov and Schloimo and my sister Bila and my brother, which is still living now in United States, is Sol and me. And do you remember your uncles’ names and your aunts’ names? Oh yes, I remember uncles because one of my older, my older, one of the older brothers eh, Carbin, he worked for the uncles, so I remember him. The family had cousins. The, the whole family, cousins, aunts, uncles did you have grandparents? Do you remember your grandparents as well? © The Regents of the University of Michigan 5 The University of Michigan-Dearborn http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu Joseph Gringlas Interview I remember, only grandparents I remember is my mother’s mother. And she was living with a, my aunt, my mother’s sister. Was she alive when the war came? She was liv...no, the war started, she, she died before the war. In 1939, before the war started, how, how large do you think the whole family was? The extended family? Oh it was uh, we were eight, let’s see. And my uncle’s two sons and then from my father’s side, my uncle. And my mother’s side were about eight children, about. It’s a big family. And uh, there was another, anoth...my mother, there was three sisters in Ostrowiec. Now there’s, now the...uh, and, and about seven, eight children. It was a big, large family. Sixty? Fifty? Yeah, about that. About that. Mm-hm. How many survived? Ok, who survived eh, so it was brother and me, two of us from our family survived. Your other siblings were all… My family. all, four others were killed then. Others was sent away and killed, right.