H eadlines
Holocaust Survivor Joseph Gringlas Dies at 96
OB ITUARY
ANDY GOTLIEB | JE MANAGING EDITOR
JOSEPH GRINGLAS, who
survived the Blizyn, Auschwitz
and Mittlebau-Dora concen-
tration camps, died Nov. 8. He
was 96.

“He had the courage to
create life, live life and enjoy
life,” daughter Marcy Gringlas
said from Jerusalem, where her
father was buried. “He was my
true hero.”
Born in Ostrowiec, Poland,
Joseph Gringlas lights candles and says Kaddish in the ruins of
Gringlas grew up as the Auschwitz-Birkenau
in 1992.

youngest of six children of
Joseph Gringlas waves the Israeli flag outside Auschwitz on a trip to
Lazar and Blima Gringlas. His Poland
with Israel Defense Forces officers in April 2013.

Courtesy of the Gringlas family
father worked as a shoemaker.

The brothers were later
to a
biography by
the Echoes
family didn’t
have to move kitchen and toiled in a steel mill.

The German army invaded
In 1942,
most of
the family
separated, with Joseph Gringlas
and Reflections
Partnership since
their home
was inside
Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, and
Bulletin was
Print sent Ad
to Treblinka when the sent to help build the Blizyn
occupied Ostrowiec a week based on a 1996 USC Shoah ghetto borders.

While in the ghetto, Gringlas ghetto was liquidated — only concentration camp. He later
later. Food soon was rationed, Foundation interview. A ghetto
transported to Auschwitz,
Sol, the family’s this
only ad was for
performed and Lazar Gringlas was not was established in the town cleaned the streets, It's
simple brother
to customize
your location.

permitted to work, according in 1941, although the Gringlas manual labor, worked in a other survivor, stayed behind. where he lied about his age and
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H eadlines
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Mittlebau-Dora. They were liber-
ated by the United States Army
on April 11, 1945, although not
before being injured by shrapnel,
which Joseph Gringlas carried in
his lungs for the rest of his life.

Those days before libera-
tion were harrowing, as the
brothers endured Allied
bombings, fleeing the barracks
and hiding amid kitchen
pipes to survive. They learned
that the SS guards murdered
anyone in the barracks who
survived the bombings.

“I weighed 80 pounds. I was
running,” he said in the 2018
Exponent article. “I was excited
— I never thought I would get
out of there.”
Joseph and Sol Gringlas
— who died in May 2020 at
the age of 100 — lived at the
Landsberg Displaced Persons
Camp after the war, where
the former attended technical
school before immigrating to
Detroit in 1950 and owning a
television repair business. He
moved to Philadelphia in 2008.

“He struggled, and he worked
hard and had his own life and his
own business,” Marcy Gringlas
said. “It was never easy.”
Gringlas spoke often to
school groups, where teachers
asked him why he wasn’t bitter
about his experience.

“He was the opposite of
bitter,” Marcy Gringlas said,
noting that her father learned
that carrying around bitterness
would only hurt him.

Gringlas debuted as an
artist in 2018 at the age of
93, displaying his watercolor
and oil paintings at Haverford
College’s Visual Culture, Arts
and Media Center through the
Stories that Live fellowship
program of the Rohr Center
for Jewish Life Chabad House.

Gringlas is survived by
his wife of 64 years Reli, who
is also a survivor; daughter
Marcy (Joel Greenberg);
son Larry (Karen Fink); five
grandchildren; and one
great-grandchild. l
It’s not too late to
save a life in Israel
this year.

Photo by Kobi Gideon / FLASH90
was sent to work at Auschwitz
III-Monowitz — and also was
reunited with his brother.

“I will never forget the
day I arrived here,” Gringlas
told his granddaughter Sara
Greenberg in a 2005 Jewish
Exponent article about a return
to Auschwitz. “When I got off
the train, I could see that the
sky was red. The permanent
smell of burning bodies is
something I will never forget.

It is a miracle I survived.”
Greenberg produced
a documentary
called “B-2247,
Granddaughter’s Understanding” — her grand-
father’s Auschwitz tattoo
number — that incorporates
footage of that trip, including a
visit to Auschwitz.

In several cases, the skills
Gringlas learned early in life
saved him, he said in a 2018
Exponent article.

“Would you believe in
Auschwitz, while they are
killing people, the Germans
decided they wanted to
plant flowers? When I was in
Poland, I had learned about
flowers. I still like flowers.

So I got the job. I got double
bread and double soup, so I
wasn’t so hungry anymore.

What happened [is that] a lot
of people came and stepped
on the flowers. Thousands of
people came through, and they
stepped on the flowers. They
ruined the flowers. But what
am I going to do? People are
going to be gassed.

“The next morning the
[guard] comes and says, ‘You
see what happened? The only
thing you have to do is take
a stick and hit them over the
head!’ But Joe wouldn’t do
it! No! Because you’d never
believe it, but a lot of people
behaved like that. I wasn’t
raised like that. I said, ‘No, sir.’
If he had been a bad [guard]
he could have killed me. But
what he did was took away my
double bread and double soup.

But I didn’t care.”
The brothers endured the
Death March from Auschwitz
in 1945, ending up at
For more than 90 years, American donors have
provided vehicles, training, and supplies to Israel’s
national paramedic and Red Cross service, equipping
them to treat the sick and injured under the most
difficult circumstances and to save lives.

In fact, this past year Magen David Adom’s 30,000
EMTs and paramedics have been on the front lines in
the fight against coronavirus while also contending
with terrorist and rocket attacks, riots, car accidents,
and other threats to Israeli lives.

If you want to make a real difference in Israel, no
other organization has a greater impact on its people
than Magen David Adom.

Make an end-of-year donation at
afmda.org/saving-lives-2021 afmda.org
agotlieb@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0797
JEWISH EXPONENT
DECEMBER 2, 2021
7