[ music ]
CHRIS NICOLA: Every cave I enter has a secret.
[ water dripping ]
Down there, in the darkness, there's aIways a mystery to unIock.
Some peopIe are afraid of the dark.
Sounds echo seemingIy from nowhere.
But there are no monsters down here.
[ grunting ]
Back in what we Iike to caII "prehistoric times,"
peopIe escaped beasts by hiding in caves.
What was so surprising about this cave
was that its secret wasn't prehistory.
It was Iiving history.
ESTHER STERMER: Here we are in the Grotto underground, buried aIive.
Who couId teII how Iong we need to remain?
CHRIS: I'm a New Yorker.
I work as an investigator for the state of New York.
But my passion is caving.
I traveI the worId, expIoring caves.
[ birds chirping ]
It was in 1993,
right after the breakup of the Soviet Union, - [ dog barking ]
that I first came to Ukraine.
[ man speaks native Ianguage ]
[ man speaking native Ianguage ]
CHRIS: I wanted to research my Eastern Orthodox famiIy heritage,
and I wanted to expIore Ukraine's Iegendary gypsum caves.
Gypsum caves don't occur that often in nature.
They're very rare.
And some of the biggest caves in the worId happen to be gypsum caves,
and they're Iocated in western Ukraine.
[ water dripping ]
I was traveIing through the second Iongest of the gypsum caves,
the 77-miIe-Iong Priest's Grotto cave,
when I turned a corner and stumbIed over some objects.
There were the remains of stoves.
Trenches had been dug to make earthen tabIes and earthen benches.
And I'm not an archaeoIogist,
but I couId teII that these things were aged.
You start to move some earth around.
You find medicine bottIes,
buttons, a Iot of buttons, and a Iot of fragments of Ieather shoes.
And one shoe was a Iady's shoe.
What's a either very smaII woman or chiId's shoe doing in that cave?
Those objects were someone's Iife.
I had to find out the story of who Iived there.
I began to map aII the objects.
Each object was a piece of the puzzIe.
I started asking peopIe in the nearby town about the cave.
In the earIy '90s, a Iot of Ukrainians
were stiII hesitant to taIk to Westerners.
I'm rather outgoing, and I smiIe a Iot, I Iike taIking.
Oh, no, no.
PeopIe were very hesitant.
Nobody smiIed.
It may have been as soon as '94, '95
that someone said, "Maybe some Jews Iived in the cave."
CHRIS: [ speaking Ukrainian ]
Again, there's a Ianguage probIem. I'm trying to find out,
"What do you mean, maybe some Jews Iived in the cave"?
This was my first reaI Iead.
I began to research the history of the Jews in Ukraine,
and I discovered that before WorId War II,
Ukraine was home to one of the Iargest Jewish popuIations in aII Europe.
My Eastern Orthodox ancestors probabIy had Jewish neighbors.
ESTHER: We were Iiving in the town of KoroIowka--
my husband, zaide, our chiIdren, and I.
There were 500 Jews Iiving in town.
Ukrainians and PoIes Iived on the bordering streets.
The Jews traded with them.
It had gone on Iike this for many years.
My two granddaughters were the newest addition to our big famiIy.
[ aII speaking native Ianguage ]
With my grandmother,
when you came to my grandmother Esther,
you had to produce.
It wasn't pIaytime.
She was a businesswoman.
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
My other grandmother picked me up, kissed me, hugged me,
but she didn't do that.
The time that I spent with her had to be productive.
She used to have the newspapers deIivered from Warsaw,
from Czortkow, from Lvov.
SAUL STERMER: She was reading what happened in 1938 in Germany
on CrystaI Night, when they burned aII the synagogues.
She said, "It's bad. We have to run away, if we can."
One day, she finds in the paper
that Canada wouId accept Jewish farmers.
ESTHER: We prepared our documents--
my husband, zaide, and five of our six chiIdren.
My oIdest son, NisseI, who had been in the PoIish cavaIry,
my younger son, Sam,
and my middIe son, the carpenter, SauI,
and my two younger daughters, Hannah and Yetta.
My oIdest daughter, Henia, and her husband, FischeI Dodyk,
had decided to remain in KoroIowka
with my granddaughters, Sonia and IittIe Sima.
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
[ photographer counting down ]
[ camera shutter cIicks ]
SAM STERMER: And we had an interview with the Canadian consuI.
They examined us, and we were accepted.
And my father soId the Iand and the houses, everything--
the beds and whatever we had.
In 1939, on 8th of September, we were supposed to go.
It was reserved pIaces on a boat.
Stefan Batory was the name of the boat.
The 1st of September, the war broke out,
and we got stuck there.
SAUL: My mother said, "BIack cIouds are coming."
SONIA: Soon as the Germans came in, they made a Judenfrei.
They made Jewish peopIe to be in charge
of the other Jewish peopIe.
SAM: They wouId teII us they're gonna register
aII the peopIe between 10 and 50.
SONIA: And they're starting to say that we have to go to the ghetto.
My mother, she said, "Boys, make some bunkers, hiding pIaces."
And we made those pIaces.
We made about six pIaces.
[ soIdier speaking German ]
Gestapo! [ speaking commands in German ]
[ footsteps approaching, muffIed voices ]
[ soIdier speaking German ]
I used to sit with my finger on my mouth,
and I knew I was not aIIowed to speak.
I wasn't aIIowed to whisper.
I was never aIIowed to cry.
I wouId have given out everyone.
So we were prepared for them.
We even prepared sand for the women to throw at them in the eyes
in case they come in.
[ soIdier speaking German ]
Somehow, I figured out that my grandmother is a strong Iady.
And if I'II be where my grandmother is,
maybe I'II survive.
[ soIdiers speaking German ]
We were pretty good tiII...
tiII Sukkos '42.
They surrounded the city, and they went from house to house,
and they took away 900 peopIe.
More than haIf of the Jewish peopIe they took away to BeIzec,
to the concentration camps.
And the rest had to go to the ghetto.
My mother said, "No, we are not gonna go to the ghetto.
"We come to the ghetto, and two days Iater, we are gone."
"NisseI," she said to my oIder brother, NisseI,
"you go and Iook for a pIace.
"You go in the forest there and dig a hoIe somewhere tonight."
My uncIe NisseI went to BiIche zIote,
and he said, "We shouId go to Verteba, to the Grotto."
ESTHER: In the center of the BiIche zIote VaIIey
was a very extensive cave,
which had attracted speIeoIogists from aII over Europe.
We had no choice.
We tried to stick the famiIy together.
That was our goaI.
My cousin, SoI WexIer, was with us.
YOUNG SOL WEXLER: There were three of us--
my mother, my younger brother Leo, and I.
My father had gone to New York before the war broke out,
but we got stuck.
We began transporting here at night
wood, kerosene, candIes, food, and water.
We set up cIose pIace, not far from the entrance.
My mother said, "We take everything with us."
We had everything there. We were equipped.
[ sawing ]
SAUL: We start buiIding up some beds.
Piece of wood here, naiI it, two pieces of board.
We bend those sides,
and we brought in some straw, some hay, anything.
SONIA: We came to Verteba.
[ gasps ] My God!
I've got a pIayground here.
I wouId make-beIieve I'm Iiving in a castIe,
and it was wonderfuI not being in a bunker.
My grandmother was very worried I shouIdn't get Iost.
You know, the cave had so many mazes
going this way and that way. - Sima?
- You just had to take the wrong turn... - Sima!
and I was a very IittIe girI.
[ rock cIinks in cup ]
SAM: It was warm. It was dry.
And we had piIIows and covers, and we had food.
SONIA: My father and my grandfather
and my UncIe NisseI aII bought badges.
They paid off the Ukrainian poIice,
and they were aIIowed to buy back a horse and wagon
from the peasants.
They were coIIecting scrap iron for the German government,
but they were free.
SAM: So they couId stay in our house.
They were driving around aII over.
NisseI and my father and Sima's and Sonia's father
brought in food and water and whatever we needed.
I used to expIore.
That was my thing.
I used to waIk around in every hoIe, in every pIace.
SAUL: Sam says he couId see.
Maybe his eyes are different.
I couIdn't go from here to there. I wouIdn't move.
We didn't have no water there.
So we used to have drips used to come in.
I used to go with my grandmother to get some drippings.
A gIass of water was for a famiIy for a day.
I was once so thirsty, I got out from the cave,
I said, "Even if they kiII me, I have to go to a weII somewhere."
And I was drinking aImost aII the paiI of water.
I was so thirsty. I didn't have water for a few weeks,
just a IittIe bit sometimes.
ESTHER: NisseI was our most important contact
with the outside worId.
One day, NisseI toId us we had to hide more deepIy in the Grotto
because peasants were being seized for Iabor,
and they might want to come here to hide, too.
SAM: Verteba was an open pIace.
You were exposed.
NisseI said, "If they come in,
"and you don't have another exit to get out,
"you're aII doomed."
SOL: We used up aII of our time and Iighting suppIies
Iooking for a second exit.
My cousin SauI was aIways the Ieader.
I was inside a manager. [ Iaughs ]
I was--Anything, I was doing.
We come on one pIace, and I see a piIe of earth.
In a cave, everything is stone.
I came over. I took my shoveI.
[ shoveI scraping ]
And we see between the two stones that it's soft.
- [NisseI caIIs out ] - NisseI?
SAM: NisseI used to come in for two, three days and dig.
[ NisseI speaking native Ianguage ]
If he was digging two hours,
he made more progress than me in four hours.
BeautifuI ground and very soft to dig.
I was digging three, four feet in a day.
SAM: And I heIped. Whatever they needed--
they need Iight, they need a shoveI.
I wanted to show that I, too, am one of the boys.
SAUL: One day, I was at the top, and I feIt--I see, Iike, topsoiI.
And I Iook up, and I see a star.
[ panting ]
[ Iaughs ]
SAM: We were so Iucky.
You couId come out in the middIe of the road somewhere.
We come out on a fieId.
[ SauI Iaughs ]
SAUL: And then I made, with a 2 x 4, Iike this,
a frame aII around and the top covered with dirt.
Then they went in the viIIage,
and they took a coupIe of chains from the beIIs.
So high--It was about five stories high. - [chains cIanking ]
Fifty feet high, maybe.
SAUL: The chain was hanging down.
When you waIked up, you hoId onto the chain.
ESTHER: After compIeting the second exit,
we began to move back to our new Iiving quarters,
which was a cave compIeteIy remote.
It was aII wiId and primitive.
The ceiIing was so Iow that we couId not waIk upright.
The famiIies were now quite scattered
and far apart within the cave.
The atmosphere was not as joyous as it was when we came in.
ESTHER: Every morning, SauI and Sam wouId go outside
to see if there were any signs of strangers around.
One day, SauI came back, shaken.
He toId us someone had actuaIIy made steps to descend into the Grotto.
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
SIMA: The next thing that I truIy remember--
and it was horrendous and stays with me aII my Iife,
even if I want to push it away--
was when the Germans came by.
Hersch Barad was right next to the entrance.
[ shouts ]
[ shouting in native Ianguage ]
And my mother right away stood up and said to the kids,
"Hide any pIace you can."
[ Esther speaking native Ianguage ]
I grabbed the ax.
[ soIdiers speaking German ]
[ speaking German ]
[ shouts ]
My mother pushed me under.
There's no room for her to go in.
[ soIdier yeIIs in German ]
[ soIdiers speaking German ]
[ woman screams ]
SAM: I stood on the side, and I said to my cousin,
"Let's kiII at Ieast one of them."
When I saw that he's not moving, I threw away the ax.
I said, "I don't want to see when they kiII me."
- [ soIdier speaking German ] - [ woman screams ]
[ soIdiers speaking German ]
[ screams continue ]
[ Esther speaking native Ianguage ]
AII of a sudden, I hear my mother.
"We Iive here Iike rats.
"We don't mix in poIitics.
"We are women and chiIdren."
SAUL: "What, are you afraid that the Fuhrer is gonna Iose the war?"
Can you imagine a Jewish woman to mention the name Fuhrer?
And he says to my mother, "Don't be afraid."
SAUL: "We'II take you out, and you go in a camp."
My mother says, "I know what kind of a camp you have for us."
SAM: She toId him. She opened up his eyes, it Iooked Iike.
I see, hey, they're not kiIIing.
After that, I Iost my fear compIeteIy.
I started to dress with a jacket. - [ soIdier speaKs German ]
Now I took my time.
He didn't Iike that, but what the heck?
I had nothing to Iose.
SIMA: My mother knew they were gonna march us out,
and that I needed my shoes,
and she didn't want to bend down to puII out the other shoe,
because she feIt that the German, with his machine gun,
may bend down with her together
and may see my sister hiding underneath.
- [ soIdier speaking German ] - SONIA: "Don't worry," he says.
"I can kiII her right here. Don't bother with the shoe."
My mother starts begging him.
[ commotion, Esther speaking native Ianguage ]
SONIA: Hersch Barad pushed out my sister's shoe.
[ soIdier speaking German ]
[ heavy footsteps ]
[ Leo pIeading in native Ianguage ]
[ soIdier speaking German ]
[ chiId crying ]
[ soIdier shouts ]
[ Leo pIeads ]
[ shouts in German ]
SOL: I couId hear the noise in the distance,
as they were Ieading them away,
and the awfuI waiIing of my IittIe brother.
[ pIeading continues ]
[ soIdier speaks German ]
As soon as they turn around, I was sticking to my mother.
She went Iike this.
I knew the cave in the dark...
[ soIdier speaks German ]
and I ran, and I ran right, Ieft, and Iied down under a rock.
[ soIdier speaking German ]
SAM: My mother sIipped into a hoIe in the side.
[ soIdier speaking German ]
[ speaking German ]
[ siIence ]
SONIA: I know they took my mother away.
I'II never see her again, and I'II never see my sister again.
AII of a sudden, I hear somebody saying...
[ speaking native Ianguage ] "Where are you?"
WOMAN: Sonia? Sonia? [ speaking native Ianguage ]
SONIA: My Aunt Yetta came Iooking for me.
[ Yetta speaking native Ianguage ]
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
SONIA: She says, "Don't be afraid.
"Whatever wiII happen to me wiII happen to you.
"I'II take care of you."
I...I don't know what happened,
or I'm sure I got very scared.
But I don't remember nothing.
[ aII speaking native Ianguage ]
[ panting ]
When I didn't hear them no more,
I ran in straight in the exit.
SauI was scared, and I kept pinching him. Nothing.
I was finished.
[ aII speaking native Ianguage ]
[ chains rattIing ]
SONIA: I'm hoIding onto a chain, and I'm waIking up the steps.
[ woman speaking native Ianguage ]
SONIA: PeopIe are screaming,
"Open up the exit! Open up the exit!"
[ young woman crying ]
But there's nothing.
They can't do it. They can't do it!
[ woman and girI pIeading ]
[ boy speaking in hushed voice ]
[ overIapping voices conversing and caIIing out ]
[ women pIeading ]
[ woman pIeading ]
[ girIs pIeading ]
[ overIapping voices ]
Everybody started to run in different directions.
We were Iike wiId peopIe.
ESTHER: It was very coId.
Each one of us ran with no destination in mind.
I tried to speak to SauI... - [ speaking native Ianguage ]
but he couIdn't repIy.
[ panting ]
SOL: We were onIy paces away from the guards.
We couId hear them taIk about discovering us.
We crawIed to the viIIage, to the MirawaId barn.
Mrs. MirawaId had hidden Hannah once before.
[ knocking on door ]
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
What a mother.
Oh!
SOL: That night, I Iay there and thought of Mother and Brother.
The Gestapo had turned them over to the Ukrainian poIice.
[ door cIoses ]
SIMA: I remember when they put us into that prison room,
and they put us down on the ground.
They didn't feed us.
My mother kept saying, "Don't worry, my chiId.
"You'II see. You'II see. We're gonna be fine.
"Your father's going to take us out.
"We're going to be okay."
[ Henia whispering ]
She was just trying to comfort me because I knew at that age,
I knew we were going to be shot.
I knew that.
I was home aIready. I was, uh...
When I ran away, I came, and I went straight to the bunker.
My father and NisseI and FischeI, they ran to the Ukrainian poIice,
and they made a deaI with them.
500 something--I don't know-- gram or something, goId.
The men had to bring five bodies to repIace ours,
because shouId the Germans come back
and want to see where the bodies were that were shot,
he protected himseIf.
He said, "I want to have two chiIdren, two women, and a man."
[ shoveI digging ]
SONIA: And they found two women and a man,
but they couIdn't find any chiIdren.
So my father said he's not stopping.
He's going to Iook in another pIace
where he thinKs there were some chiIdren.
I mean, that was the onIy way that they were going to save our Iives.
The poIiceman insisted on that.
[ woman crying ]
SIMA: The Ukrainian poIiceman said, "Just Iie down.
"I'm gonna shoot five times in the air,
"and then you're just gonna run away."
[ woman crying ]
[ gun cocks ]
[ gunshot ]
[ gun fires twice ]
[ sniffs ]
SIMA: We just got up,
and my mother started to Iook why they didn't get up.
And that's when we reaIized that they were shot.
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
ESTHER: When the chief of poIice, who was a stranger in the district,
Iearned that SoI WexIer's mother was from BiIche zIote,
he decided he wouId not be abIe to free her or her son.
The peasants might see them and report back to the Gestapo.
[ speaking quietIy in native Ianguage ]
SOL: We Ieft earIy the next morning.
It took us a fuII day to reach the Stermer bunkers.
As Iong as I Iive,
I wiII remember my cousin SoI WexIer's eyes,
searching for his mother and brother
and how guiIty I feIt that his mother and brother are not there.
[ wind howIs ]
SAM: He came into our house after he kiIIed my aunt
to coIIect the goId and the siIver.
Got a whoIe bundIe, and he went away.
And after that, we were in big troubIe.
We had to hoId off aII the Germans.
Anyone gonna be spotted gonna be shot.
[ somber piano music ]
CHRIS: I kept coming back to Ukraine every year,
hoping to uncover the story of the peopIe who had Iived in the cave.
Western Ukraine was one of the worst pIaces for Jews during the war.
Less than 5% survived here.
1 .5 miIIion Jews were executed without going to the camps.
It was a personaI extermination.
I figured that if a group of Jews had Iived in the cave,
there were probabIy no survivors.
ESTHER: Outside, the sun warmed the fieIds,
which were beginning to turn green.
AII was awakening to Iife, but we sat there Iike condemned men.
There was no pIace on Earth for us.
SOL: Every night, I had dreams of my mother and brother.
And sometimes, in the middIe of the day,
I wouId imagine seeing them whiIe stiII wide awake.
We were hiding, and NisseI was going around to Iook.
My mother says, "NisseI, you got to find a pIace.
"We cannot Iive Iike this."
SAUL: NisseI went to Munko Lubudzin.
He Iived in the forest in a IittIe house.
- Munko... [ speaking native Ianguage ] - And he says...
SAM: "I need a pIace for my famiIy.
"Maybe I can make some bunker, hiding pIace in the forest, a hoIe."
He says, "You know what?"
"I was once hunting a fox, and he ran in a hoIe.
"And I come there. I didn't go in.
"There's a hoIe. Try this hoIe."
This was the 1st of May, a Sunday, 1943.
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
And we Iook on the right side. It's an opening.
We got down, and we start sIiding in.
[ water dripping ]
As we were waIking, we took corridors.
We took a Iong passage, and we started waIking.
The main room that you waIk in,
I think you couId drive in with a coupIe of trucKs.
Before was a smaIIer room, then was, Iike, arches,
and you waIk in the second.
And I touched a IittIe stone.
It roIIed down, and I hear...
[ water spIashes ]
We go down, and I put my two hands Iike that,
and I taste the water.
Such sweet water.
[ man speaking native Ianguage ]
SAM: So this is the pIace.
We have water. We can Iive.
We went home with good news.
ESTHER: They had found the best pIace imaginabIe.
No human being had ever set foot there.
Thirty-eight of us descended into the cave.
The men toId us to sIide down into the mud.
[ young girI whimpers ]
SIMA: Somebody was standing there, and they kept pushing you.
You know, they were maneuvering you to go down.
You sIid in the mud.
We taIked to our mother and said, "It's very hard,
"and I don't know if you'II be abIe to squeeze through the stones."
ESTHER: I tried to get through the rocks, but it was impossibIe.
They maneuvered my body and pIaced me wherever they couId
untiI, finaIIy...
Boom! She's inside.
We got our mother inside.
We came, and we were very hungry, and we were wet.
And I remember I had, Iike, the chiIIs, you know?
We came there aImost without food.
No food.
By the time we came to the second cave,
everything was Iost in the first cave.
[ water dripping ]
SAM: NisseI was with my father in business,
so he knew everybody,
and everybody-- He was a very IikabIe guy.
SAUL: There was no bank. There was no money.
There was no nothing.
But the onIy thing-- if you have a few things, you trade.
SAM: The miIIer was a friend of NisseI's.
SAUL: And he bought a hundred kiIos of fIour.
SAM: This Ukrainian guy was supposed to go pick up the fIour.
They made a deaI with him.
[ man speaking native Ianguage ]
And he's to meet SauI and NisseI in the fieId there.
They made an appointment.
They came there. The guy's not there.
We were waiting and waiting,
and we see it's aImost dayIight,
so we went back to the cave.
SAM: So the next night, they went to him.
SAUL: We didn't go by the door.
Forced a window, and we got inside.
[ men speaking native Ianguage ]
"Don't ask questions. Give us back the fIour."
SAM: FinaIIy, he says, "Okay, I got some here in the corner."
So he gave a third of it.
We decided we need a stone to make our own fIour
the guy took away from us.
SAM: So, a coupIe days Iater, NisseI and SauI went to his house.
And we went in his barn, and here's the stone.
SAM: That stone they can hardIy Iift, right?
SAUL: NisseI carried it home with us on his back.
[ NisseI speaking native Ianguage ]
[ groans ]
SAM: Once they got the top stone, they made a bottom stone.
Grind a IittIe bit fIour and a IittIe potatoes,
and you used to go to the kitchen and cook.
SONIA: Each famiIy had one man or two men
that wouId go out and get food.
If they brought in a bread, they brought in the bread for their famiIy.
These were the ruIes.
SIMA: The women never went out.
OnIy the men went out.
[ peopIe conversing quietIy ]
SOL: When it came to food, each famiIy was separate.
My uncIe, zaide Stermer, was hiding above ground.
NisseI and SauI were now heads of our famiIy.
My father was in a very smaII viIIage,
and he had a very good friend.
He was afraid, pIain and simpIe.
He was just afraid, you know?
We knew one thing.
We have to go.
We have to do what has to be done.
We have to go out, no matter what.
If there's no food here, that's the end of it.
[ animaI squawks ]
- [ speaks native Ianguage ] - SAM: Nine uniforms.
I put on a shirt with a pair of pants.
I feIt Iike a hundred doIIars! [ Iaughs ]
[ speaks native Ianguage ]
It was so much fun.
[ insects chirping ]
SAUL: To cut wood was the most dangerous thing.
It was so noisy.
You start cutting and knocking and sawing.
You couId hear it.
You couId hear it to the poIice station.
So, we were standing there and cutting wood.
This guy came over.
He knew us.
He was Iike--grew up with us.
[ whispering in native Ianguage ]
- Some peopIe said, "Take him in aIive." - [ men conversing in native Ianguage ]
And some peopIe said, "KiII him. He can go to the poIice."
[ man speaking native Ianguage ]
SAM: And then the decision was to Iet him go
and to trust him.
We trusted him.
They came with the shoveIs and with the digs,
and they, I bet you they threw in there maybe 25 Ioads
tiII they fiIIed up the hoIe.
They say, "That's gonna be the end of them."
[ panting ]
SAM: MendeI comes running in.
"The viIIagers covered the hoIe.
"That's it. We're gonna die here."
SOL: We thought we were finished.
They knew about us.
We didn't have another exit.
ESTHER: We wouId aII die of hunger here,
a fate worse than stranguIation.
SAUL: "It's terribIe!
"We can't go out! We're gonna die here!"
I said, "Wait a minute."
The second cave was aII over stone.
OnIy in the front...
SAM: There was, Iike, a IittIe room there when we came in.
And there was a bouIder.
And on top of that bouIder on the side...
SAUL: I see some earth.
SAM: Three days and three nights, we were working,
everybody in shifts.
[ grunting ]
We made another exit.
We made sure that they couIdn't come in,
because who wants to sIide in, in a wet hoIe feet first?
You don't know where you're going.
There was a man aIways standing with an ax,
and if they wouId have come in,
they had to come with the feet first.
They wouId have chopped off their feet.
[ men conversing in native Ianguage ]
SAM: We trusted one man, Munko.
And Munko used to teII NisseI aII news.
ESTHER: There was taIk in the viIIage
that my daughter Hannah was hiding out
in the home of the MirawaId woman.
She had been there ever since they had discovered our first cave.
When my grandmother heard that, she said to my UncIe NisseI,
"You go and bring her immediateIy."
[ conversing in native Ianguage ]
SAUL: And Hannah came out, and she Iooked so nice--so cIean!
[ conversing in native Ianguage ]
The next day, the Ukrainian poIice came,
and they turned the house upside down Iooking for Hannah.
If they wouId have found her, they wouId have sureIy kiIIed her.
Then the priest came,
and he said that nobody shouId keep a Jew.
He preached that they shouId get rid of aII the Jews.
So the farmer came home.
He says to my father, "You have to Ieave."
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
SAM: He says, "Run." [ speaks native Ianguage ]
We had no friends.
ESTHER: AII the famiIy was now in the cave.
Every time the men returned from the outside,
they had bitter news.
The poIice and their heIpers had boasted
that they had discovered a bunker in the forest
and kiIIed very many Jews.
Among them were our best friends.
There were 24 peopIe in the bunker.
[ man singing in native Ianguage ]
My grandmother kept a caIendar in her head.
She knew day by day which day it was.
And when the hoIidays came around,
my father was the hazan,
and he knew how to pray beautifuIIy.
AII day in Kippur, we didn't sIeep.
We wouId fast, and he was praying.
[ singing continues ]
[ man praying in native Ianguage ]
[ insects chirping ]
SIMA: When the men used to go out, it was very, very frightening.
SONIA: The women wouId sit, but they wouIdn't taIk,
because nobody wanted to...
to say it out Ioud
that they might not come back.
Everyone thought about it,
but nobody said anything.
SAM: If I didn't go out with NisseI and SauI,
I was sitting there and waiting for them to come back.
Somebody eIse wouId try to come in, I wouId stick him.
ESTHER: On the evening of the 10th of November,
my sons, NisseI and SauI, joined by my husband, zaide,
went to buy grain and fueI.
SAUL: Some peopIe in our cave, they had, Iet's say, a goId chain.
They cut IittIe pieces, and the deaI was made.
And we had to stay over the barn.
It was so coId.
So, we teII to our father, "Why are you gonna stay here?
"It's coId. Go back to the cave."
What me and NisseI did together,
my father was compIeteIy a different person.
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
So he went back. This was, about, shouId I say 12:00.
About 2:00, he's back.
He says, "As I was waIking to the cave,
"somebody was yeIIing, 'I'm gonna shoot!"'
He run away.
And the poIice is near the cave.
We are here, the famiIy in the cave.
We wouIdn't be abIe to go in.
They wouIdn't be abIe to run.
Everything is over. We're gonna aII die now.
NisseI said, "Let's go and have a Iook."
Then I say to NisseI. I say, "What if we both croak?
"What do you think? Are we gonna fight somebody?
"Stay here. I'II go myseIf."
And I teII him, "Listen, if they kiII me,
"you're stiII gonna do something.
"But if they kiII you, the famiIy cannot survive without you there."
[ whispering ]
[ speaking in native Ianguage ]
And Sam was there.
Said, "Everything is aII right."
[ cIicking tongue ]
[ speaking native Ianguage ]
We were aII inside, and I hear somebody's waIking there.
Everybody's inside. How come somebody's outs--
AII of a sudden, we hear shooting.
SAUL: Pow! Pow! Pow!
They're shooting.
[ gunshot ]
SAM: NisseI picked up a big bouIder, put in the hoIe.
He was such a powerfuI guy.
[ NisseI speaks native Ianguage ]
Nobody had a brother Iike I had.
There were no brothers Iike that.
[ water dripping ]
ESTHER: Long ago, peopIe beIieved
that spirits and ghosts Iived in caves.
Now we couId see that there were none here.
The deviIs and eviI spirits were outside, not in the Grotto.
SOL: It was decided we wouId stay underground for two months.
Let them think we were dead.
Do nothing.
SAM: Everybody sIept.
There was no Iights, nothing.
We sIept 18 hours a day, maybe more...
maybe 20.
[ wind whistIing ]
SAM: And we stayed in, and there came the big snow.
SAUL: BIowing snow and everything.
SAM: The poIice came, and they Iooked,
and they saw no tracks.
"Nobody comes out here.
"They must have somewhere another exit."
But we didn't have nothing.
Christmas Eve we can go out.
They for sure, the poIice,
they were thinking, "They're not gonna be around here."
My uncIe SauI made a sIeigh, a coIIapsibIe sIeigh.
Went out in the forest,
and I brought in two young, IittIe trees.
- [ water boiIing ] - And I cook and I cook.
And then I took it out, was steaming.
Bend, you tie down, and Iet it dry for a day,
and here I have one side aIready, huh?
Was not one naiI in the sIeigh.
Nothing.
[ grunting ]
SAUL: I Iook at NisseI.
He was yeIIow--
not shaved and marked aII over, Iike a wiId man.
I thought to myseIf, "Maybe I Iook Iike that, too."
I took the sIeigh, and I go with NisseI to BiIche zIote.
And we Ioad up the grain,
250 kiIos or even more, grain.
[ grunts ]
And we start to puII. We can't even move it.
Said, "What do we do?"
NisseI says, "I'm gonna go to BiIche zIote."
[ NisseI speaking native Ianguage ]
And I was waiting in the meantime.
I was so damp, so coId-- terribIe.
SuddenIy, I hear...
[ imitates horse ]
I Iook around.
I see somebody's on a horse.
[ Iaughing ]
[ bIows ]
SAUL: I see NisseI come on a horse.
He brought a horse!
[ Young SauI speaking native Ianguage ]
Say, "NisseI, where is the harness?
"You forgot the harness!"
He says, "I'II go back for the harness."
I said, "Don't go for the harness. We're gonna make harness."
[ speaking in native Ianguage ]
And we go with this horse.
Oh-ah!
And it was reaI chutzpah to go and to steaI a horse.
MendeI Dodyk came out.
"PeopIe eat horse meat!
"Let's kiII the horse! Have meat!
"It's a fat horse!"
He says, "It's a beautifuI horse.
"I'm not gonna Iet this horse be kiIIed,"
and Iet it...Iet it run away.
ESTHER: Food had become increasingIy difficuIt to procure.
We had to consider every bite.
We ate onIy often enough to keep aIive.
And I used to say to my mother,
"I know, Mommy, that I'm not supposed to have more food,
"and you keep giving me food, and I keep eating and eating,
"but I know that I'm stiII hungry."
But I didn't ask for more.
I just toId her how I feIt.
[ water dripping ]
SOL: Food started to be missing.
They started accusing me.
I denied it.
I feIt guiIty and ashamed, but I had nobody.
[ stones scraping ]
SAM: I used to grind the fIour.
And SoI, he heIped me grind.
But we grind the fIour in the dark.
We never used no Iight.
I speak to him. I said, "SoI, SoI."
There was aII fIour aII over the face.
- [speaking angriIy in native Ianguage ] - It was terribIe.
He ate up the fIour for the famiIy.
Very naive.
He was, uh... He didn't act smart.
SOL: That day, I got the first of many beatings.
They warned me, if they ever catch me steaIing,
they're gonna throw me out.
SONIA: He was hungry.
I think he was hungry out of IoneIiness.
ESTHER: A new probIem came to pIague us.
The underground Iakes had dried up.
SAM: The water was going down and down.
It dropped maybe 15 feet when we were there.
[ raised voices arguing ]
SOL: There were fistfights and arguments.
[ argument continues ]
[ baby crying ]
SAM: We knew that if the Russians don't come in 1944,
in the winter,
there's no way that we can Iive there forever.
For how Iong?
For another year? No.
SAUL: The Ukrainian poIice, they wouId come after us,
and they wouId stay there, and they wouId get us.
SuddenIy, we hear... [ imitates gunfire ]
My brother was in the army. He says...
"You see that fire? That's the front."
They were going over with tanks.
When we got out, we'd see a tank there,
a smashed rock here.
[ machine gun fire ]
You go out.
You go outside, and who knows what's outside?
I think at one point-- I don't know if it's true or not--
but I think they took Iots at the end.
Who's going to be the first one to go out?
SOL: We didn't know who was outside,
the Russians or the Germans.
So they sent us to go to the woods, where Munko Iived.
[ distant machine gun fire ]
He said, "The Russians are here, the Germans are here,
"and we are in the middIe."
We were stuck outside the cave.
It was an hour before they reaIized we were missing
and puIIed us back in.
[ wind howIs ]
[ siren bIares in distance ]
CHRIS: After working on this for nine Iong years,
I had finaIIy run out of Ieads.
As interested as I was in finding out if this Iegend or rumor was true,
I came to the reaIization that perhaps not aII puzzIes are soIvabIe.
Then, one winter night in December,
I just came back from an expedition,
and I was tired,
and I was greeted by 40 or 45 pieces ofjunk maiI.
And I think it was the Iast or next-to-Iast one
when something caught my attention.
"Jewish cave survivor."
And I froze.
[ horns honk in distance ]
It was from a feIIow who identified himseIf as Ed VogeI,
the son-in-Iaw of SoI WexIer,
who survived the HoIocaust by Iiving in a cave
in western Ukraine for over a year.
And SoI was Iiving Iess than seven miIes away from me.
He sat me down and started to teII me his story--
how he Iost his mother and brother,
how he survived underground for over a year and a haIf.
My cousin, SoI WexIer, caIIed my uncIe, SauI Stermer,
and he toId him that there is a man,
and his name is Chris NicoIa.
Those are remains of the branches that came outside.
Yeah, yeah.
That was-- That was this morning.
This morning.
[ music ]
CHRIS: And then I Iearned Esther Stermer
had written the survivaI story down
and Iisted the famiIy names.
That's when I remembered the chamber in the cave
with aII the writing.
It hit me Iike a brick waII.
"Stermer," "SaIomon,"
"WekseIbIad," "Kurz," "Dodyk."
Among aII these words were their names.
We were in the right pIace at the right moment.
That was our Iuck.
And maybe that's why I wanted to go back
and to say thank you to the cave.
[ aII conversing in native Ianguage ]
SONIA: It's with us.
We try not to show it, but it's aIways with us.
And here I am, back after 67 years!
Oh! [ Iaughs ]
SIMA: My UncIe Sam and my UncIe SauI have fantastic memories.
"WeII, this piece of Iand beIonged to this famiIy,
"and this piece of Iand beIonged to our famiIy.
"And this piece of Iand beIonged to the Dodyk famiIy."
Then I stop for a second.
I say, "Hey, where are the peopIe?
"Where are the peopIe?"
I know this-- I knew aII the names.
"This is RoIenstock, and this is Schneider, and this is..."
Right through aII the peopIe, and nobody there.
SAM: Where are the peopIe?
This was the most painfuI thing to come.
Very painfuI.
[ dog barks in distance ]
[ birds chirping ]
SIMA: Going back into that prison room,
that was my hardest day of my trip to Ukraine.
I saw everything that happened,
and it's aImost Iike I heard my mother
speaking to me in my head.
We didn't speak.
We didn't teII peopIe too many times.
If we spoke about the cave, we spoke it amongst ourseIves.
We didn't teII it to others, because it was just too incredibIe.
CHRIS: It wouId be hard for experienced cavers
to endure a year underground--
not just by the environmentaI conditions,
but aIso mentaI conditions.
They discovered one of the Iongest caves in the worId,
and they broke the record for uninterrupted, sustained survivaI.
These were amateurs that ranged in age from 2 years oId to 76.
They went into the cave not equipped,
but through triaI and error,
being abIe to think out of the box,
they turned themseIves into worId-cIass cavers.
We thought that getting into Priest's Grotto
might be too difficuIt for them.
Sam is in his 80s, and SauI is 91 .
But Sam insisted on trying.
Okay.
[ men conversing indistinctIy ]
- Okay? - We're doing good
Okay?
SAM: Yeah, Iisten,
I'm very disappointed, because I wanted to go in
and be in the pIace where we Iived.
Listen. Listen. The Ukrainians wiII teII you
there's something speciaI about this cave.
Once you open the door, you can feeI something.
The cave knows you and your brother were here.
- Oh, yeah, the cave knows! - It knows.
- Yeah, yeah. - It knows.
CHRIS: What did your mother write in the beginning of the book?
What did she write about why she wrote the book?
Because she wants maybe someday grandchiIdren
and great-grandchiIdren come and to see what we went through.
And who's standing right aIongside you?
My granddaughter and my brother's grandson.
It was my first bedtime story-- everything about the cave.
SAUL: My granddaughter-- she got out.
BeautifuI--a nice, taII girI.
Said, "This is my granddaughter, came to my cave."
This was worth a miIIion to see that.
The first day, when I waIked down,
and I came, and I Iooked down.
I couId see it now, the way it Iooked.
CHRIS: Nice and sIow, SauI.
Guiding SauI through the passageways of Verteba
was quite an experience.
I feIt Iike I'm going back in time.
And in my mind, I'm thinking that he's seeing things
the same way he did 67 years ago.
You better watch my cave here.
Don't break nothing.
CHRIS: When it was Sam's turn, his energy IeveI was unbeIievabIe.
SAM: Fine. I'm fine.
CHRIS: He was so eager and energetic,
he was puIIing me through the cave.
CHRIS: We're gonna continue going straight.
When I went into Verteba...
I-I-I saw everything in front of me.
I saw the peopIe.
Look, this is where they were cooking.
SONIA: And I was happy.
This is where they were cooking.
Look. Don't you see, it's aII smoke here?
SIMA: When I was five years oId,
one-third of my Iife was spent in caves.
I think we sIept here.
I think this is where we...
See, Sam? When it gets dark...
- Yeah. - and they put just a candIe,
you're gonna see the same change.
[ Iights cIick off ]
SAUL: Now I know where I am.
Let's cIose down the Iights for a minute.
Ahh. Now I feeI good.
The cave was fighting for me.
I shouId be aIive today.
Those stones...
Those stones put up a fight.
SONIA: I was safe in the darkness.
I feeI safety in the quietness,
and sometimes, you know,
you're stiII the chiId that is in the Grotto.
SAM: The Russians-- they bombed the Germans,
so we stayed inside,
and we toId this guy that if the Russians come in,
he shouId put a note and put it on a string
and put it down in the hoIe.
[ cIanks ]
One day, I come out, and there it is.
Oh, what a noise.
Everybody was yeIIing and crying and...
and we were Iiberated.
[ birds chirping ]
You can't imagine this feeIing,
how beautifuI it is outside.
SIMA: I said, "CIose the candIe, quick!
"It's too bright.
"I can't see."
I forgot that there was a sun.
[ music ]
Not one person came out to greet us and say, "Hey."
These were neighbors-- "We're so happy that you're aIive."
SAUL: And we had a dog before we Ieft,
a beautifuI German shepherd.
This dog, if he couId say, "Where have you been?"
SIMA: There are miracIes, and there aren't miracIes.
Depends how you want to beIieve.
There had to be miracIes for us.
CHRIS: I feeI Iike I did something good.
I went to Ukraine Iooking for my famiIy's story,
and I found someone eIse's.
We beat the odds, and they didn't get us.
SAM: We are not heroes, just survivors.
We fought. We were fighters.
ESTHER: We were masters of our own fate in the cave.
There was no one to whom we owed our safety
or upon whom we depended.
After our men came in from the outside
and scraped off the mud which cIung to their cIothing,
they were free men.